IRLF 


SB    33    bOfl 


GIFT  OF 


NOTES 


ON 


IN    THE 


UNITED    STATES; 


THEIR  NATURE,  POSITION,  AIMS  AND  WANTS. 


"Is  there  any  such  happiness  as  for  a  man's  mind  to  be  raised  above  the  confusion  of  things, 
where  he  may  have  the  prospect  of  the  order  of  nature  ? " 

"Are  we  the  richer,  by  one  poor  invention,  by  reason  of  all  the  learning  that  hath  been  these 
many  hundred  years  ? " 


BY  S.    EDWARD  WARREN.  C.  E., 
*  > 

PROP.  OF  DESCRIPTIVE  GEOMETRY,  ETC.  IN  THE  RENSSELAER  POLYTECHNIC  INSTITUTE,  AND 
GRADUATE  OF  THE  SAME.    (CLASS  OF  '51.) 


NEW    YORK: 

JOHN  WILEY  AND  SON,  535  BROADWAY. 
1866. 


A.  W.  SCRIBNER,  PRINTER,  CANNON  PLACE,  TROY,  N.  Y. 


'":  0   ,V  I-7H  ' 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


These  unpretending  pages,  put  forth  in  advance  of  a  possible  fuller 
treatment  of  their  subject,  are  an  attempt  to  respond,  even  if  but  very 
briefly,  and  provisionally,  to  much  earnest  inquiry  concerning  the  true 
nature,  position,  and  aims  of  Polytechnic  Schools;  and  to  the  evident 
immediate  need  of  correct  popular  information  relative  to  them.  It  is 
hoped  that  they  may  also  contribute  to  unity  of  sentiment  and  action, 
both  among  their  friends  in  the  community  at  large,  especially  their 
alumni,  and  among  their  officers  and  thoughtful  and  earnest  members. 
That  the  need  just  alluded  to  exists,  is  riot  surprising.  The  whole  class  of 
Polytechnic — otherwise  called  Scientific,  Technical,  Technological,'  or 
Industrial — Schools  is  of  modern  origin  everywhere,  and  in  this  country, 
comparatively  unique.  Hence  misapprehension  of  their  true  nature  and 
grade,  and  consequent  legitimate  mode  of  administration,  not  unnaturally 
arises,  on  slight  misleading  occasions. 

For  statements  of  facts,  we  have  relied  on  official  publications,  corres- 
pondence, and  standard  educational  literature,  without,  however,  inter- 
rupting the  reader  by  continual  foot  note  references  to  them.  The 
statistics  of  the  concluding  section  are  mainly  abridged  from  the  valuable 
report  on  the  reorganization  and  proposed  development  of  the  Rensselaer 
Polytechnic  Institute,  prepared  in  1855,  by  the  then  Director.*  We 
have  been  unable,  in  the  short  time  which  could  be  spared  for  recording 
these  notes,  to  hunt  up  many  later  or  fuller  authorities. 
JANUARY,  1866. 


B.  FRANKLIN  GREENE,  A.  M.,  C.  E. 


3G1399 


NOTES  ON  POLYTECHNIC  SCHOOLS. 


i. 


It  will  be  convenient  to  present,  first,  in  these  notes,  a  list  of 
the  existing  "Scientific  Departments"  and  Technical  Schools 
in  the  United  States,  so  far  as  they  are  known  to  the  writer. 

In  reference  to  the  first  section  of  the  following  table',  it 
should  be  understood  that  it  embraces  those  schools,  whose 
character  as  truly  distinct  professional  schools,  is  most  apparent. 
This  distinctive  character  is  more  or  less  obscured  in  the  case 
of  the  schools  named  in  the  second  part  of  the  table,  owing  to 
their  comparatively  undeveloped  condition,  so  far  as  now  known, 
or  else  to  their  being  merged  in  the  general  courses  of  the  institu- 
tutions  including  them.  Hence  it  has  been  impossible  to 
arrange  them  in  the  same  list  with  those  of  the  first  section,  in 
the  order  of  definite  dates  of  beginning. 

The  familiar  professional  schools — Theological,  Medical  and 
Legal — are,  as  is  well  known,  sometimes  separate  institutions, 
and  sometimes,  attached  to  colleges.  The  same  is  true  of  Sci- 
entific Professional  Schools.  Hence,  in  any  case  where  the 
name  does  not  indicate  the  fact,  the  first  column  of  the  table 
shows  the  condition,  in  this  respect,  of  each  school  mentioned. 


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O'FALLON  POLYTECH.  INSTITUTE. 
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Not  yet  in  operation. 

Not  yet  in  operation. 

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"  "  Technical  Chemistry. 
"  "  Agriculture. 
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8—"  PROFESSIONAL  (  SCIEN 
PARTMENT."  (Among 
Schools  of  Univ.  of  N.  ' 

9—  SCIENTIFIC  SECTION  OF 
TON  UNIVERSITY. 

10—  COOPER  UNION  FOR  THE 
MENT  OF  SCIENCE  AND 
dependent.) 

1  1—  COLLEGIATE  AND  EN 
INSTITUTE.  (Independ 

12—  SCHOOL  OF  MINES.  (Of 
College.) 

13—  MASSACHUSETTS  INST] 
TECHNOLOGY.  (Full 
years.—  Independent.) 

14—  WORCESTER  Co.  FREE  Ii 
INSTITUTE.  (Independ 

1  5—  CORNELL  UNIVERSITY. 

1  6—  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  SOT 
yet  in  operation.) 

17—  DELAWARE  LITERARY 
AND  ENGINEERING  SCH 

1  8  —  SCHOOL  OF  MINES.  (In 
with  Harvard  College  ) 

8 
SEOTIO3XT     III 


LOCATION.         FOUNDED  IN  :     ATTENDANCE. 


Brown  University.  Dep't. 

of  Chemistry  and  Engineering,     Providence,  R.  I. 

New  York  Free  Academy,  N.  Y.  City,  1853,  482  in  1864. 

Brooklyn  Collegiate  and 

Polytechnic  Institute,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  1855, 

University  of  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Dep't.  of  Mines,  Arts  and  Manu- 
factures. 
Washington  College.  Lexington,  Va.  1866. 

Dep't.  of  Practical  Mechanics. 


Some  of  the  institutions  named  in  the  foregoing  table,  are 
characterized  by  distinctive  features,  so  marked  and  peculiar, 
that  a  brief  mention  of  them  is  added,  so  far  as  it  may  favor  a 
fuller  understanding  of  the  table.  It  is,  however,  as  foreign  to 
our  purpose,  as  to  our  place,  to  offer  critical  notices,  or  enter 
into  comparisons,  at  least  in  case  of  actually  existing  institu- 
tions. 

THE  RENSSELAER  POLYTECHNIC  INSTITUTE  is  distinguished  as 
the  pioneer  of  its  class  in  this  country.  At  first,  more  known 
as  a  school  of  Technical  Natural  Science,  than  of  late  years  ; 
its  present  character,  to  which  it  owes  so  much  of  its  pres- 
tige, was  impressed  upon  it  during  a  transition  period  of 
about  five  years,  beginning  in  1849.  If  it  be  added  that,  until 
within  a  very  brief  period,  it  stood  alone  in  respect  to  the 
extent  and  elevation  of  its  curriculum,  it  is  saying  no  more 
than  ought  to  be  true  of  the  senior  institution.  The  assertion 
is  also  justified  by  the  facts :  first,  that  most  of  its  graduates, 
of  late  years,  have  required  the  full  four  years  for  the  comple- 
tion of  their  course  of  study ;  and  second,  that,  nevertheless, 


the  average  age  of  its  first  year  men,  or  "  Division  D,"  has 
been  from  one  to  two  years  above  the  minimum  age  (sixteen)  for 
admission,  while  the  average  age  of  its  present  second  year 
men,  or  "Division  C,"  of  over  fifty  members,  is  scarcely  less 
than  three  years  above  its  corresponding  minimum  required  age, 
(seventeen). 

THE  SHEFFIELD  SCIENTIFIC  SCHOOL  is  in  part  characterized 
by  its  connection  with  Yale  College,  which  has  long  been  a 
distinguished  home  for  the  culture  of  the  Natural  Sciences. 

THE  LAWRENCE  SCIENTIFIC  SCHOOL  possesses  a  distinctive 
peculiarity  of  organization,  by  which  limited  fields  of  study 
are  marked  out  as  departments,  which  are  kept  so  far  distinct, 
that  separate  arrangements,  as  to  tuition  fees  and  times  of 
instruction,  are  required  for  each. 

THE  COOPER  UNION  is  distinguished  by  its  character  as  a 
most  noble  charity,  bright,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  in  the 
constellation  of  the  world's  best  charities — charities  of  that 
nature  that  it  is  no  humiliation  at  all,  but  a  high  honor,  to  be 
intelligent  and  appreciative  recipients  of  them — inasmuch  as  it 
acts,  in  an  elevated  sphere,  on  the  sound  principle  of  co-opera- 
tion, uniting  its  benignly  facilitating  aids  to  progress,  with  the 
worthy  efforts  of  those  "  who  carry  weight  in  life." 

We  cannot  here  stop  to  give  statistics  of  its  practical  work- 
ings, since  they  are  duly  stated  in  its  reports. 

THE  MASSACHUSETTS  INSTITUTE  OF  TECHNOLOGY  is  remarka- 
ble for  the  comprehensiveness,  and  large  scale,  of  its  organiza- 
tion. It  embraces  three  grand  divisions :  A  Society  of  Arts, 
in  several  sections,  each  devoted  to  a  specific  subject  of 
theoretical  or  practical  inquiry;  and  working  on  such  a  scale, 
as  to  furnish  motive  power  for  use  in  exhibiting  the  action  of 
full  sized  mechanical  inventions ;  a  Museum  of  Arts,  analagous 
to  the  Paris  "Conservatory  of  Arts  and  Trades,"  and  a  School  of 
Technology,  in  six  divisions,  as  seen  in  the  table,  and  marked,  as 
it  would  seem,  by  a  purpose  to  test  the  extent  to  which  instruc- 
2 


10 

tion,  in  exact  science,  can  be  effectively  given,  by  lectures,  on 
the  basis  of  sixteen  years  of  age,  and  an  academy  preparation, 
as  the  minimum  of  age  and  training  required  for  admission. 

This  institution  also  has  a  notable  collateral  feature,  in  its 
system  of  free  evening  instruction  to  intelligent  and  earnest 
artizans  of  both  sexes,  given  in  Boston  by  joint  arrangement 
with  the  "  Lowell  Institute." 

THE  WORCESTER  COUNTY  INDUSTRIAL  INSTITUTE  has  a  quite 
unique  feature,  in  its  unusual  proposed  provision  for  the  prac- 
tical study  of  mechanism.  It  contemplates  nothing  less  than 
what  might  be  called  a  Laboratory  of  Mechanism,  to  consist  of 
a  well  appointed  machine  shop,  with  power,  machines  and 
tools ;  in  which  the  special  student  of  mechanical  engineering 
can  find  a  counterpart  to  the  Chemical  Laboratory  of  the  indus- 
trial chemist ;  the  Physical  Laboratory  of  the  professional 
student  of  physics,  (optics,  telegraphy,  etc.) ;  the  Metallurgic 
Laboratory  of  the  student  of  mining,  and  the  Mechanical 
Laboratory  (for  testing  materials,  truss  combinations,  etc.,)  of 
the  student  of  civil  engineering. 

THE  CORNELL  UNIVERSITY — to  embrace  a  school  of  agricul- 
ture and  the  mechanic  arts,  as  a  condition  of  its  claim  to  the 
share  of  New  York  in  the  national  public  land  grant  to  the 
states  for  the  endowment  of  agricultural  colleges  therein,  con- 
templated in  the  law  of  July,  1862 — stands  with  few  or  no 
rivals  in  the  magnitude  of  its  moneyed  and  landed  endowments, 
The  former,  including  the  grand  donation  of  the  State  Senator, 
whose  name  it  bears,  with  the  proceeds  of  the  national  land 
grant,  amounts,  it  has  been  stated,  in  round  numbers,  to  one 
and  a  half  millions  of  dollars;  and  its  grounds  are  required,  by 
the  incorporating  act,  to  contain  not  less  than  twro  hundred 
acres.  The  same  act  allows  it  to  hold  an  aggregate  property 
not  exceeding  three  millions  of  dollars. 

When  it  is  considered  that  there  is  a  limit,  fast  approaching, 
to  the  most  useful  number  of  such  institutions  for  a  given  pop- 
ulation, having  reference,  we  mean,  to  the  full  development  of 
these  technological  schools,  it  is  most  earnestly  to  be  hoped 


11 

that  the  organization  of  this  institution  will  be  distinguished 
by  unity,  breadth,  and  comprehensiveness  of  design,  so  that,  if 
built  up  in  successive  parts,  each  part  shall  fall  into  its  fit  place 
as  a  component  of  a  predetermined  organic  whole.  The 
opportunity,  afforded  by  its  resources,  for  realizing  the  ideal  of 
an  essentially  complete  Polytechnic  University,  is  too  fair  to 
pass  without  the  most  studious  and  assiduous  endeavors  to 
improve  it. 

In  most  just,  though  sad,  contrast  with  the  preceding  bright 
array  of  the  crowns  of  freedom,  there  appears  the  shadow  of 
the  so  called  University  of  the  South,  at  Sewanee,  Tenn.  This 
proposed  institution  has  met  the  fate,  due  to  the  representative 
educational  head  of  a  frustrated  attempt  to  upbuild  the  collos- 
sal  barbarism  of  a  political  and  social  state,  on  the  foundation 
of  a  legalized  dehumanization  of  an  amiable,  docile,  and  capa- 
ble race  of  the  fellow  men  of  the  members  of  that  state ;  a 
state,  which,  besides  being,  as  respects  humane  civilization, 
barbarous,  was,  in  the  face  of  the  nineteenth  century  of  Chris- 
tian civilization,  a  vast  organized  practical  blasphemy. 

Having  an  offensive  dash  of  haughty  sectionalism  in  its  very 
name,  which  was,  doubtless,  significant,  this  University  was,  as 
exhibited  in  its  constitution  arid  statutes,  largely  pervaded  by 
the  sectional  spirit  of  oligarchy  and  autocracy.  It  even  made 
a  provision,  so  revolting  to  a  worthy  and  justly  high  minded 
professorial  corps,  for  a  counterpart  to  a  plantation  overseer,  in 
the  person  of  an  officer  who  was  to  have  very  much  such  dis- 
ciplinary power  over  the  Faculty  !  !  as  the  latter  should,  if  at 
all  wrorthy  of  their  places,  have  over  the  immature,  or  readily 
misled,  youths  committed  to  their  (should  be)  cherishing  care. 
But,  in  this  provision,  we  only  see  the  form  assumed  in  the 
field  of  higher  education,  by  that  inextinguishable  subtle  spirit 
of  disesteemfor  labor,  even  so  elevated  as  that  of  the  professorial 
chair — if  only  it  be  useful  labor — a  spirit  which  is  the  neces- 
sarily blasting  accompaniment  of  a  system  of  bond  labor. 

In  its  ambitiously  inflated  organization,  this  institution  was 
but  a  confused  collection  of  no  less  than  thirty-two  separate 
schools,  so  called,  some  relating  only  to  single,  general  subjects 


12 

of  study,  as  Physics  ;  others,  to  comprehensive  departments  of 
professional  knowledge,  as  Law,  or  Engineering,  each  properly 
embracing  a  circle  of  such  general  subjects. 

We  spoke  of  the  above  University  as  having  met  with  a 
destroying  fate.  It  is  reported  that  its  very  foundations  were 
Carried  away  piecemeal,  as  relics,  by  the  armies  of  National 
Unity,  Broad  Humanity,  and  Emancipated  Industry.  Let  us 
hope,  however,  that  when,  in  due  time,  the  spade,  the  'loom, 
the  press,  and  the  free  school,  as  secular  instruments  of  free, 
christianized  humanity,  shall  have  done  their  regenerating 
work,  this  institution  will  reseat  itself  on  its  mountain  estate 
of  eight  thousand  acres,  as  a  powerful  centre  of  humane,  polite, 
and  industrial  culture. 


II. 


0f  f  njstnwlifltt  of 


1.  EDUCATIONAL  PLANE.  Systematic  education,  or  the  or- 
derly development  of  the  powers  of  the  human  mind,  by  the 
aggregate  of  methods  and  appliances  employed  in  school  in- 
struction, exists  in  four  grades,  viz  : 

\  ' 

Rudimentary, 

Elementary, 

General,  or  "Liberal" 

Technical,  or  "  Professional." 

These  grades,  or  successive  stages,  are,  moreover,  natural  and 
not  artificial,  since  each  has  its  peculiar,  and  strongly  marked, 
defining  characteristic.  Neglecting,  here,  their  recognized 
varieties  and  subdivisions,  they  may  be  defined  as  follows  : 

1.  Rudimentary   Education. — This   is   the   germ,    embracing 
the   alphabet ;    reading,   of    merely    narrative    or    declarative 
sentences,  of  the  simplest  kinds,  about  the  commonest  things ; 
writing,  of  detached  letters,  or  their  mere  elements ;  singing, 
by  the  ear ;    observation,  of    common  things ;    arithmetic,  of 
operations  on  small  whole  numbers,  so  small  as  to  be  realized 
in  thought. 

2.  Elementary  Education. — This  initiates  the  mind  into  the 
beginnings  of  the  use  of  the  keys  of  knowledge.     It  opens  to 
view,  and  teaches,  Arithmetic,  Grammar,  Geography,  Composi- 
tion, Domestic  and  Neighborhood  Morals.     Indeed,  it  acquaints 


14 

the  mind  with  the  elements  of  the  many  branches  of  knowl- 
edge, as  pursued  in  Grammar  and  High  Schools,  and  the 
equivalent  private  schools. 

3.  General  Education. — This    begins,    when    the    mind    has 
so  far  developed  as  to  have  an  original,   free,  love  for  knowl- 
edge, and  becomes  conscious  of  individual  intellectual,  artistic, 
or  moral  tastes  of  its  own.     This   education,  it  is  the  chamcter- 
istic  office  and  aim  of  the  college  to  afford.     These  institutions 
give,  to  the  awakened,  eager  and  active   mind,  facilities  for 
gaining  a  comprehensive  view,  as  from  a  hill  top,  of  the  whole 
field  of  knowledge.     They  also  labor  to  secure  for  their  mem- 
bers such  a  degree  of  acquaintance   with   the  various  mathe- 
matical, physical,  philosophical,  and  classical  studies,   together 
with  invigorating  practice,  by   composition  and  declamation,  in 
the   enlarged    use   of  written    and   spoken    language — such    a 
degree,  we  say,  of  all  this,  as  qualifies  the  mind,  thus  "  liberally" 
trained,  to  choose  which  select  group   of  studies  it  will  after- 
wards more  fully  pursue  to  a  practical  end. 

4.  Professional  Education. — This,    when  found   in  the  most 
favorable  condition,  is  planted  in,  and  grows  out  of,  the  well 
prepared  soil  of  liberal  general  culture  just  described  ;   or,  to 
change  the  figure,  it  is  erected  upon  that  as  a  broad  and  sub- 
stantial basis.     Its  office  and  aim  is,  to  give   the  due,  full,  and 
exact  training,  necessary  for  qualifying  one  for  that  successful 
and  honorable  professional  practice,  in  which  trained  and  culti- 
vated intelligence  is  the  prime  agent  in  the  mere   gaining  of  a 
livelihood,   but,  better,  in  the  life  work  of  making  a  sensible 
contribution  to  the  commonwealth. 

By  now  comparing  the  professed  objects  and  actual  results, 
of  at  least  the  more  well  developed,  of  the  institutions  named 
in  the  table,  with  the  foregoing  principles,  we  learn,  that,  at 
least  in  their  two  or  three  upper  years,  they  are  strictly  and 
fully  professional  schools.  For  Civil,  Mechanical,  Topographi- 
cal, and  Mining  Engineering,  Physical  and  Chemical  Technol- 
ogy, and  Architecture,  are  not  taught  in  them  merely  to 
discipline  the  mind,  or  to  qualify  one  to  participate  in  the 


15 

intercourse  of  polite  society,  though,  together  with  previous- 
general  culture,  they  should  richly  contribute  towards  accom- 
plishing these  elevated  and  most  desirable  objects.  These 
great  subjects  are  taught,  principally,  as  elevated  scientific 
practical  professions,  that  is,  as  means  of  gaining  ample  and 
honorable  support,  and  of  ennobling  the  state,  by  the  applica- 
tion of  fruitful  principles  of  science,  to  the  beneficent  arts  of 
ffeace. 

Summarily,  the  end  of  College  education  is  the  discipline  of 
the  mental  faculties,  as  working  forces.  That  of  Professional 
education  is  the  endowment  of  the  already  fairly  disciplined 
faculties,  with  the  principles  of  exact  science  and  applied 
learning,  considered  as  instruments  of  higher,  productive  and 
physically,  socially,  and  morally,  conservative,  industry. 

Going  through  this,  or  any  land,  with  these  determining 
definitions  in  hand,  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  distin- 
guishing its  professional  schools,  of  every  name  and  kind,  or 
however  disguised  by  unfamiliar  names,  or  other  irrelevant 
particulars. 

But  to  present  the  Polytechnic  class  of  professional  schools 
as  in  the  focus  of  vision,  a  distinction  must  be  explained. 

Science  is  subjective,  relating  to  man  himself,  his  physical  and 
spiritual  constitution;  and  objective,  relating  to  all  external 
nature.  In  the  former,  lies  the  foundation  of  the  ancient  profes- 
sions of  Medicine,  Law,  Divinity,  and  Polite  Literature  as  a  Fine 
Art.  In  the  latter  region  of  science,  lies  the  foundation  for  the 
distinctively  modern  technological  professions  of  Engineering, 
Applied  Physics  and  Chemistry  and  Natural  History,  and  the 
material  fine  arts,  of  Architecture,  Music,  etc. 

Schools,  then,  alike  truly  professional,  and  equal  in  dignity, 
as  determined  by  either  of  three  decisive  tests,  viz  :  The  talent 
demanded  by  them,  the  extent  and  elevation  of  tlieir  courses  of 
study,  or  the  magnitude  and  beneficence  of  their  results,  stand  in 
two  distinct  groups,  appropriately  distinguished  as  Humanistic, 
or  Polytechnic,  according  as  their  chosen  scientific  field  is 
subjective,  or  objective  ;  relating  to  Man  in  himself  considered, 
or  to  External  Nature  as  able  to  be  richly  tributary  to  man. 


16 

In  case  of  any  to  whom  the  previous  statements  and  conclu- 
sions of  this  section  are  new,  and  who  hesitate  about  accepting 
them  till  reassured  by  the  argument  from  competent  testimony, 
it  may  be  sufficient  to  refer  them  to  the  official  publications  of 
such  high  and  well  established  institutions  as  Harvard  and  Yale 
Colleges,  or  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology  and  the 
Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute.  The  two  former,  in  that 
simple,  matter  of  course  way,  which  is  the  strongest  form  o*f 
assertion,  as  if  the  question  admitted  of  no  dispute,  speak  of 
their  scientific  departments,  as  professional,  equally  with  their 
other  professional  departments.  The  latter  uniformly  assume, 
as  a  thing  everywhere  understood  by  the  well  informed,  that 
their  courses  are  professional  ones,  in  the  full  sense.  And 
numerous  other  scientific  institutions,  both  the  detached  class, 
and  those  which  form  professional  departments  of  colleges,  do 
the  same.  This  question,  then,  of  the  grade  of  Schools  of 
Technology,  may  therefore,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  be  considered  as 
finally  settled. 

2.  METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  From  a  different  point  of 
view  than  the  one  here  occupied,  this  topic  might  justly  claim 
a  full  section,  or  even  a  separate  treatise.  But  it  serves  our 
present  purpose  to  mention  it  here  but  briefly. 

The  method  of  instruction  in  the  old  professional  schools,  is 
largely  that  of  lectures.  Hence,  some  seem  to  be  ambitious  to 
have  the  same  method  prevail  in  polytechnic  professional 
schools  also.  But  we  think  the  connection  between  the  two 
things — the  grade  of  the  school,  and  the  method  of  teaching — 
is  mostly  arbitrary,  and  that  the  methods  of  teaching  are  prop- 
erly dependent,  rather,  upon  the  nature  of  the  subjects  taught. 
Now  it  is  well  known,  or  may  be  readily  understood,  that  all 
knowledge  of  mathematical  subjects  must  necessarily  be  exact, 
or  worthless.  Hence,  a  point  lost,  or  misunderstood,  in  a  mathe- 
matical lecture,  may  occasion  hours  of  discouraging  perplexity, 
and  annoying  possibilities  of  one's  entire  work  in  writing  up 
the  lecture  being  vitiated.  Therefore,  we  would  restrict 
lecture  instruction  to  descriptive  subjects,  in  which  an  error 


1.7 

does  not  vitiate  the  whole  ;  and  to  experimental  subjects,  which 
address  themselves  largely  to  the  senses;  and  to  mathematical 
subjects,  only  in  case  of  comparatively  mature,  and  considerably 
proficient,  students  of  them. 

Nor  do  we  think  that  instruction  loses  anything  of  freshness 
and  interest — very  important  elements,  most  truly — by  this 
method.  For,  in  studying  from  a  text  book  on  exact  science, 
the  student  has  the  pleasing  certainty  that  he  has  a  reliable 
authority  to  work  on,  and  from  ;  then  annotations  and 
reductions  of  his  own,  familiar  expositions  and  supplementary 
notes  by  the  professor,  arid,  in  case  of  Descriptive  Geometry, 
exhibition  of  curious  special  cases,  and  of  models,  with 
informal  expositions,  will,  altogether,  maintain  due  interest 
among  those  in  who;n  any  method  would  enlist  earnest  effort. 

We  only  care,  now,  to  add  to  the  above  the  bare  statement 
of  the  methods  of  polytechnic  instruction,  viz  : 

Formal  lectures. 

Familiar  expositions,  in  part  conversational. 

Interrogations  and  Black  Board  demonstrations. 

Practical  exercises  in  Geodesy,  Astronomy,  Physics,  Chem- 
istry, botany,  Geology,  Graphics,  and  Mathematical  and  Me- 
chanical problems,  etc. 

Excursions,  for  inspection,  sketching,  etc. 

Systematic  Reviews. 

Oral  and  written  examinations. 

A  notice  of  methods  of  instruction  may,  however,  embrace  a 
few  words  about  professorial  and  tutorial  functions,  and  the 
hours  of  daily  duty  of  teachers  and  students. 

A  professor,  properly  and  distinctively  so  called,  makes 
some  extensive  subject  a  field  for  continued  research,  either 
with  a  view  to  enlarging  the  area  of  existing  knowledge  with 
respect  to  it,  or  the  bounds  of  it  as  actually  taught  in  the 
place  of  his  chosen  labors.  He  also  is  the  responsible  head  of 
his  own  department  of  instruction,  and  gives  instruction  per- 
sonally, in  the  higher  subjects  of  his  department,  and  through 
assistants  in  its  more  elementary  portions,  taking  care  to  duly 
superintend  the  matter  and  manner  of  their  instructions. 


18 

The  importance  of  providing  such  amount  and  competency 
of  assistance  as  will  relieve  a  professor  from  being  merely  a 
tutor,  ending  the  year,  so  far  as  advancement  of  his  depart- 
ment is  concerned,  just  as  he  began  it,  is  clearly  recognized 
by  higher  educators,  and  in  the  practice  of  liberally  managed 
institutions,  since  hardly  anything  conduces  more  to  their 
vigorous  life  and  growth,  than  due  provision  for  professorial 
research,  in  behalf  of  increased  and  remodelled  matter,  and 
methods,  of  instruction. 

As  to  daily  labor  in  polytechnic  schools,  we  believe  it  true 
that  they  are  quite  generally  understood  not  to  be  abodes  of 
luxurious  ease,  or  dissipated  idleness.  Rather  they  are  designed 
to  correspond  to  the  most  approved  mechanical  motors  built  by 
their  professional  graduates,  in  yielding  the  largest  percentage 
of  useful  result  in  a  given  time.  It  is  definitely  stated,  that 
in  the  Central  School  of  Arts  and  Manufactures,  at  Paris,  eight 
and  a  half  hours  in  the  school,  and  four  more  in  his  room,  is 
the  daily  standard  of  student's  work  ;  and  similar  information 
is  in  our  possession  relative  to  other  European  schools.  Let  us 
see  what  an  exhibit,  for  the  performance  of  the  human  engine, 
can  be  made  on  this  basis.  Eight  hours  for  sleep,  an  hour  and 
a  half  for  dinner,  and  an  hour  for  each  of  the  two  other  meals, 
including  healthful  repose,  or  light  pastimes,  makes  eleven  and 
a  half  hours,  leaving  the  twelve  hours  and  a  half  for  work. 
Now  in  these  hours,  mind  and  body  labor  conjointly.  In  some 
practical  exercises,  as  in  a  good  deal  of  Laboratory  and  Draw- 
ing Room  practice,  and  in  Engineering  Field  Work,  the  activity 
is  largely  physical,  and  in  the  latter  case,  as  well  as  in  out 
door  pursuit  of  any  department  of  Natural  History,  is  highly 
pleasant  and  invigorating.  Also  in  all  practical  exercises  under 
instruction,  and  attendance  on  the  more  informal  expositions  of 
the  instructor,  there  is  a  subdued  play  of  the  kindly  social 
element,  which  is  by  no  means  to  be  overlooked  in  its  lubrica- 
ting influence  upon  the  workings  of  school  mechanism.  So 
that  the  purely  mental  activity  of  the  twelve  and  a  half  hours, 
reduced  to  its  equivalent  of  close  study,  would  probably  not 
average  half  that  time,  or  more  than  six  hours  daily,  which 


19 

was  about  the  standard  approved  by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  when  at 
the  height,  equally,  of  his  health  and  his  success. 

There  would  seern,  therefore,  to  be  no  difficulty  in  realizing 
the  preceding  programme,  tempered  too,  by  a  half  or  whole 
secular  day's  absence  of  prescribed  exercises,  and  the  inviolable 
Sunday  privilege  of  rest,  and  opportunities  for  self-adjustment 
and  accumulation  of  moral  power — if  life  be  not  clogged  with 
surfeit,  like  a  locomotive  choked  with  afire-box  filled  solid  with 
coal  dust — if  it  be  not  wasted  by  vice,  like  the  locomotive  with 
inly  corroded  boiler,  that  can  hold  but  faint  working  pressure — 
if  it  be  not  consumed  by  destroying  excitements  or  stimulants, 
like  the  boiler  through  whose  flues,  uncovered  with  water,  the 
fire  rages  with  unnatural  heat. 

Modern  civilization  is  bound  to  justify  itself  by  producing 
a  more  perfect  type  of  symmetrically  developed  manhood  than 
before  appeared,  and  the  polytechnic  school,  as  a  favorite  son 
of  that  civilization,  is  bound  to  exhibit  in  the  sustained  activity 
of  its  members,  a  higher  percentage  of  effective  work,  than  any 
other  organization  can  show. 


III. 


of  §,ol:i)tote« 


1.  NOMENCLATURE,  a. — General  Nomenclature. — To  treat  this 
topic  clearly,  settled  definitions,  if  possible,  must  be  given  to 
certain  educational  terms,  which  are  well  known  to  be  popu- 
larly used  in  a  very  loose  manner. 

First.  "  College."  Turning  from  the  dictionary  to  an  encyclo- 
paedia, for  fuller  standard  information,  we  find  a  college,  in  its 
primary  meaning,  to  be  a  union  of  persons,  having  "  like  powers, 
privileges,  and  customs,  in  one  office,  for  a  common  end."  Thus 
the  phrase,  "  College  of  the  Apostles,"  is  in  use  to  this  day, 
and  in  the  ancient  Roman  State,  trade  associations,  as  of 
carpenters,  bakers,  etc.,  etc.,  were  called  colleges. 

Again,  all  through  the  middle  ages,  and  to  the  present 
time,  various  protective,  administrative,  judicial,  elective,  and 
religious  bodies  were,  and  are,  called  colleges.  Thus,  there 
was,  perhaps  is,  the  poor  men's  decent  burial  college ;  the  Russian 
"  college  of  general  superintendence,"  (of  benevolent  institu- 
tions), the  "college  of  justice,"  or  supreme  court,  of  Scotland  ; 
the  United  States  coHeyc  of  presidential  electors,  etc. 

Lastly,  and  chiefly,  the  word  "  college,"  in  connection  with 
higher  education,  has  a  curious  history.  In  that  revival  of 
learning,  which  occurred  in  the  13th  century,  celebrated 
lecturers  drew  eager  crowds  of  youths  to' their  lecture  halls, 
and  special  buildings,  under  proper  superintendence,  were 
provided  for  their  meals  and  lodgings.  These  were  the  original 


21 

colleges,  mere  endowed  students'  hotels,  both  in  England  and 
on  the  continent.  These,  sooner  or  later,  became  transformed 
into  places  of  instruction,  including  the  lecture  rooms  within 
them,  and  each  possessing  a  faculty  of  instruction,  so  that  now 
a  "  commons,"  or  general  eating  room,  in  a  college,  is  the 
dying  relic  of  what  the  entire  college  originally  was. 

The  name  of  college  is  seldom  applied  to  professional 
schools,  though  Medical  Schools,  and  these  only,  if  we  are  not 
mistaken,  sometimes  call  themselves  Medical  Colleges,  also  the 
table  in  Section  L,  presents  one  Polytechnic  School  called  a 
college.  But,  in  either  case,  it  is  not  to  be  inferred,  that  such 
schools  stand  on  the  same  educational  plane  with  true  classical 
colleges,  or  are  conducted  on  merely  college  principles. 

Our  limits  forbid  the  introduction  of  much  interesting  matter 
under  this  head,  which  may  be  found  in  reports,  or  papers,  on 
superior  education. 

Second.  "  University.'"  This  word,  like  "  college,"  had, 
originally,  no  reference  to  an  institution  of  learning,  but  only 
to  corporations,  who  may  have  preferred  this  title  to  that  of 
"college,"  merely  to  express  the  completeness  of  their  organi- 
zation, or  the  universality  with  which  it  embraced  all,  fitted  to 
belong  to  it.  Thus  there  were,  in  ancient  Rome,  "  universities'*' 
of  tailors,  etc. 

The  word  became  a  term  in  education,  in  the  13th  century,- 
and  did  so  because  it  expressed  the  idea  of  a  corporation,  such 
as  was  formed  by  an  organized  body  of  teachers.  It  was 
always,  as  now,  a  term  of  superior  dignity,  meaning  an  institu- 
tion, or  corporation,  existing  for  purposes  of  higher  instruction. 
There  were  many  of  these  universities  in  Europe,  in  the  middle 
ages,  of  which  the  first  wras  at  Paris,  giving  instruction  in  Law, 
Medicine,  Divinity,  arid  in  what  was  then  called  the  Arts, 
meaning  the  literature  and  meagre  theoretical  science  of  the 
ancients.  And,  as  already  described,  colleges  were  nothing 
more  than  the  hotels  of  the  students  at  those  universities. 

Finally,  at  the  present  time,  the  term  university  is  used  in 
various  senses,  some  having  no  definite  meaning.  First. — The 
German,  or  continental,  sense,  of  a  school  superior  to  modern 


22 

colleges — called  in  Germany,  gymnasia — in  which  any  single 
subject,  or  department,  of  general  science,  can  be  pursued 
to  any  extent  desired  by  the  student. 

Second. — The  general  English  sense,  of  corporate  institutions, 
intended  for  purposes  of  instruction,  and  surrounded  by  colleges, 
as  incorporated  and  endowed  lodging  places  ;  but  to  which  the 
university  has  quite  abandoned  the  work  of  instruction.  Thus 
the  university  is  a  blank  form,  and  the  colleges  have  advanced 
from  merely,  each,  giving  instruction  in  some  one  or  two 
branches,  to  the  rank  of  competitors,  with  each  other,  in  giving 
an  entire  collegiate  course,  mostly  under  tutorial  instruction, 
for  an  academic  degree,  or  a  professional  degree,  in  the  old 
professions.  Efforts  have  been  made,  however,  to  reform  the 
English  Universities  in  this  respect. 

Third. — The  new  and  special  English  sense,  of  a  senate  of 
eminent  scholars,  with  its  boards  of  examiners,  called  collect- 
ively, the  University  of  London.  Students  from  all  the  other 
colleges  and  universities  in  England,  or  its  colonies,  dissenting 
or  otherwise,  can  obtain  degrees  from  it,  by  passing  its  exami- 
nations. 

Fourth. — The  popular  American  sense,  so  far  as  there  is  a 
definite  one,  tends,  perhaps,  to  associate  the  term  university 
with  those  institutions  which  embrace  in  their  design,  or  actual 
operation,  a  circle  of  professional  schools,  successive  to  the 
collegiate  course  as,  in  part  at  least,  their  common  foundation. 
Yet,  on  the  one  hand,  some  institutions,  of  the  highest  char- 
acter, in  this  country,  are  merely  called  colleges ;  and  on  the 
other,  some,  hardly  superior  to  a  New  England  city  high 
school,  style  themselves  universities. 

Fifth. — There  are,  in  addition,  two  American  special  uses, 
of  the  term  "  university."  First,  as  applied  to  State  univer- 
sities, like  that  of  Michigan,  which  form,  each,  the  crowning 
member  of  a  state  educative  structure,  whose  foundation  is  the 
state  common  school  system.  The  University  of  Michigan  is  a 
favorable  example  of  these  universities,  having  two  parallel 
collegiate  courses,  of  four  years  each,  one  classical,  the  other 
largely  scientific,  and  both  succeeded  by  professional  courses, 


23 

in  Law,  Medicine,  Chemical  Technology,  Civil  and  Mining 
Engineering,  aided  by  ample  and  varied  cabinets,  etc.  Second. 
There  is  the  so  called  University  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
giving  no  instruction,  but  embracing  a  board  of  regents,  to 
whom  all  the  academies,  colleges,  and  professional  schools, 
make  annual  reports — including  some  meteorological  observa- 
tions— as  a  condition  for  receiving  their  respective  shares  of 
the  "literature  fund"  of  the  State. 

Among  and,  in  part,  better  than  all  these  numerous,  and 
partly  confused  senses  of  the  term  university,  the  following 
might  be  adopted  as  a  standard  one,  due  to  the  historic,  as  well 
as  essential,  dignity  of  the  term,  viz  :  A  university  is  an  insti- 
tution for  instruction,  in  which,  besides  professional  instruction 
in  one  of  the  two  grand  divisions  of  professional  schools, 
humanistic,  or  polytechnic,  (p.  15)  provision  should  be  made 
for  carrying  those,  who  have  time,  means,  and  inclination  for 
being  students  for  life,  through  a  course  as  extended  as  the 
existing  resources  of  human  knowledge  will  permit.  Also  such 
institutions  may  properly  include  a  foundation  general,  or  col- 
legiate course,  congruous,  in  each  case,  with  their  distinctive 
professional  courses. 

Third.  "Academy" — This  word  originally  meant  only  a 
public  park  in  the  city  of  Athens,  where  Socrates  and  his  chief 
pupil,  Plato,  imparted  instruction,  in  their  pagan  philosophy, 
to  Athenian  youth,  assembled  in  its  groves.  The  disciples  of 
Plato  were- called  Academists,  and  each,  on  opening  a  school  of 
his  own,  called  it  an  academy. 

At  present,  the  term  "academy"  has  three  applications. 
First,  to  a  school,  usually  private/  of  about  the  same  grade  as 
any  city  public  high  school,  and  intermediate  between  the 
grammar  school  and  the  college,  as  the  latter  is,  between  the 
academy  and  the  professional  school.  Second,  to  Government 
Military  and  Naval  schools.  Third,  to  associations  of  men, 
eminent  in  any  one  or  more  departments  of  general  or  profes- 
sional knowledge,  or  art.  These  are  found  in  all  civilized 
nations,  the  most  celebrated  being  the  five  conjoint  academies 
of  France,  unitedly  composing  the  Imperial  Institute  of  France. 


24 

These  are  the  French  Academy,  the  Academy  of  inscriptions 
and  polite  literature,  the  Academy  of  sciences,  the  Academy 
of  fine  arts,  and  the  Academy  of  moral  and  political  science. 

Fourth.  "  Institute" — This,  also,  is  a  name  of  very  broad 
application,  meaning  anything  instituted,  i.  e.  set  in  place, 
whether,  a  custom,  or  a  book,  or  a  school,  or  association  of  any 
grade.  Nothing  can  be  inferred  from  this  nnme,  of  the  grade 
of  a  school  of  learning,  or  association,  adopting  it,  as  these 
range  all  the  way  from  boys'  boarding  schools,  up  to  the  unri- 
valled Institute  of  France,  just  mentioned. 

Fifth.  "  School." — This  is  by  far  the  broadest,  or  most 
generic,  of  all  these  educational  terms,  being  merely  any 
aggregation  of  appliances,  systematic  or  not,  organized  or  not, 
which,  intentionally  or  not,  act  to  develope,  either  well  or  ill, 
the  human  being.  Thus,  human  life  is  truly  a  school.  Nature 
is  a  school.  So,  too,  particular  forms  and  spheres  of  life,  as 
street  life,  workshop  life,  and  business  life,  are  schools.  Asso- 
ciated opinion,  as  general  public  opinion,  or  sectarian  opinions, 
are  schools,  and  the  adherents  to  such  opinions,  are,  themselves, 
collectively  called  schools.  Thus  we  have  schools  in  politics, 
in  theology,  in  medicine,  in  art.  Also  the  term  school  applies 
to  the  whole  range  of  express  institutions  of  instruction,  from 
the  humblest  primary,  to  the  highest  professional  one. 

More  exactly,  now,  a  school  is  any  educational  organization, 
complete  in  itself,  whether  existing  independently ;  or,  as  a 
component  unit  in  some  more  comprehensive  organization. 
Thus,  there  are  medical  and  other  professional  schools,  separate 
from  any  college,  and  there  are  like  schools  attached  to  colleges 
as  their  basis.  In  the  latter  case,  by  reference  to  catalogues, 
we  shall  find,  first,  the  general  faculty  of  the  whole  institution, 
considered  as  a  compound  unit ;  then,  separate  lesser,  but 
complete,  "faculties"  of  the  component  professional  schools. 

With  reference,  next,  to  the  adoption  of  "  school  "  as  the  title 
of  the  institutions  devoted  to  the  last  and  crowning  stage  of 
systematic  education  under  tuition,  that  is,  to  professional  edu- 
cation, there  is  a  beautiful  ground  of  its  propriety.  Stated 


25 

abstractly,  as  a  general  principle,  it  is  this  :  It  is  quite  beyond 
the  capacity  of  any  sounding  title  to  reflect  honor  upon,  or 
exhibit  the  honor  of,  the  highest  ideas  and  objects,  so  that  the 
latter,  being  self-sufficient,  rejoice  in  the  simplest  and  homeliest 
names.  "Home"  is  better,  every  way,  than  "paternal  man- 
sion ;  "  the  "  evening  star,"  than  the  "  nocturnal  luminary  ;  " 
my  "  love,"  than  my  "  most  distinguished  consideration  ;  " 
"  teacher,"  than  "  professor  ;"  and  "  school,"  than  "academy," 
"institute,"  or  "seminary." 

This  really  familiar  principle  is  very  generally  acted  on,  in 
naming  professional  Institutions,  which  are  almost  invariably 
called  schools,  both  separately  and  collectively,  as  Law  Schools, 
Scientific  Schools,  Theological  Schools,  etc.  The  name  of 
school  is  adopted  then,  although  the  simplest,  yet  as  really  the 
highest,  because,  as  above  shown,  the  most  generic.  The 
descriptive  epithet  added,  as  Polytechnic  School,  marks  both 
its  sphere  and  grade.  This,  however,  when  but  a  single  pro- 
fessional course  is  given.  Each  course  leading  to  a  degree, 
demands  its  special  school,  and  the  term  Institute,  is  especially 
recommended,  by  frequent  continental  European  practice,  as 
the  general  title  of  the  organization. 

Sixth. — Without  making  separate  heads  for  the  following,  a 
"  department,"  as  distinguished  from  a  "  school,"  and  as  a  branch 
of  a  comprehensive  institution,  might  be  defined  as  not  being 
subject  to  a  special  faculty,  complete  in  itself,  included  within 
the  general  faculty,  as  before  described  in  defining  a  school, 
though  it  must  be  confessed,  that  this  definition  has  exceptions 
in  actual  usage.  In  Germany,  when  "  school "  is  the  general 
name,  "  departments "  are  often  called  "  sections."  Lastly, 
"  seminary  "  is  not  the  name  of  a  different  kind  of  institution 
from  those  bearing  any  of  the  preceding  names,  but  merely  a 
different  name  for  the  same  thing,  a  name  based  on  the  idea  of 
a  school  as  a  place  for  the  dissemination,  or  seed  sowing,  of 
knowledge.  Divinity  schools,  especially,  for  instance,  style 
themselves  indifferently,  "schools,"  "institutes,"  "seminaries," 
or  "  departments." 
4 


b. — Professorship  Nomenclature. — The  Chief  of  internal  ad- 
ministration in  higher  institutions  is  variously  styled,  President, 
Chancellor,  Rector,  Provost,  Director,  etc.  The  last  term  is 
appropriate  to  polytechnic  schools,  as  conformed  to  continental 
usage,  and  as  in  accordance  with  the  desirable  features  of 
essential  unity  of  administration,  and  an  executive  organi- 
zation of  chief  and  associates,  analogous  to  that  of  a  civil  chief 
and  his  cabinet,  or  a  state  governor  and  council — the  chief,  in 
all  such  cases,  having  due  authority  to  act  singly,  in  emergencies 
demanding  power  and  promptitude.  But  we  had  more  particu- 
larly in  mind,  that  very  important  feature  of  true  department 
nomenclature,  which  duly  expresses  the  fact  that  each  of  the 
scientific  professions  has  large  component  parts,  each  forming 
matter  for  a  full  professorship.  Thus,  Civil  Engineering  em- 
braces, as  necessary  and  fundamental  to  it,  Mathematics, 
Physics,  Analytical  Mechanics.  Geodesy,  and  Descriptive  Ge- 
ometry, or  the  Science  of  Form,  with  its  applications. 
Now  when  the  separate  chairs  in  a  Divinity  school,  a  Law 
School,  or  a  Medical  School,  can  be  consolidated  in  one ;  or, 
when  one  man  can  give  duly  elevated  and  extended  courses 
of  instruction  in  the  five  foregoing  departments  of  knowledge, 
then,  and  not  before,  will  the  phrase  "professor  of  civil 
engineering  "  and  the  enumeration  of  "  civil  engineering,"  as  a 
simple  element  of  a  programme  of  study,  co-ordinate  with 
other  single  studies,  as  History,  Geology,  Mechanics,  Drawing, 
etc.,  cease  to  be  absolutely  ridiculous.  This  assertion,  is,  of 
course,  no  intended  reflection  upon  those  who  act  under  such  a 
nomenclature,  since  they  find  it  ready  made  for  them,  and, 
very  likely,  tolerable  only  as  a  provisional  concession  to  popular 
misapprehension  of  the  real  constituent  parts  of  engineering 
science. 

According  to  the  misapprehension  alluded  to,  civil  engineer- 
ing is  about  equivalent  to  geodesy,  which  is  only  one  of  its 
subordinate  components.  For  the  end  of  geodesy,  relative  to 
engineering,  is  the  instrumental  determination  of  field  data,  as  a 
basis  for  the  proper  designing  of  works,  which  last  requires  an 
extended  knowledge  of  Mathematics,  Technical  Physics, 


27 

(strength  of  materials,  etc.,)  and  Mechanics ;  and,  then,  the 
intelligible  representation  of  works,  whatever  their  complexity, 
and  in  all  their  details,  by  an  application  of  the  principles  of 
Descriptive  Geometry.  Hence,  in  no  continental  polytechnic 
programme,  that  we  have  yet  heard  of,  can  be  found  any  such 
anomalous  expression  as  "  professorship  of  civil  engineering," 
or  any  analogous  nomenclature. 

c. — Class  Nomenclature. — Turning  next,  for  a  moment,  to 
class  nomenclature,  we  find  the  numerical  system  (1st,  2nd, 
etc.,  classes)  in  general  use  in  all  lower  schools.  In  colleges, 
the  titles  "  Freshmen,"  "  Sophomores,"  "  Juniors,"  and  "Sen- 
iors," are  doubtless  unalterable,  and  well  enough  so.  In  some 
professional  schools,  classes  are  designated  in  partial  repetition 
of  the  college  nomenclature,  as  "  Junior,"  "  Middle,"  and 
"  Senior,"  in  three  year  courses,  or  Junior  and  Senior  in  two 
year  courses,  such  as  are  usual  in  Law  and  Medical  Schools. 
In  others,  the  mere  terms  "  First  year,"  "  Second  year,"  etc., 
indicate  the  classes. 

In  the  case  of  professional  schools,  having  a  four  years'  course, 
as  in  two  of  the  polytechnic  schools  named  in  the  Table,  (p.  6), 
there  are  manifest  objections  to  a  mere  repetition  of  the  college 
nomenclature  ;  since  the  entering  member  of  any  professional 
school,  whatever  his  previous  studies  may  have  been,  stands  in 
a  scholastic  position  four  years  in  advance  of  the  college,  "fresh- 
man," and  probably  does  not  propose  to  become,  or  be  regarded 
as,  a  freshman  a  second  time,  after  such  an  interval.  Assuming, 
then,  that  the  polytechnic  variety  of  professional  schools  may 
reasonably  have  some  distinguishing  badge,  in  its  class  nomen- 
clature, there  is  reserved  for  these  schools  the  alphabetical 
system,  adopted  by  the  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute,  also 
by  the  Cooper  Union  (p.  9),  for  the  classes  in  the  five  year 
course  of  its  night  school.  Only,  in  the  former  case,  the  badge 
is  one  of  total  distinction,  the  classes,  being  styled ."  Divisions" — 
"  Division  A"  (the  highest),  etc. ;  while  in  the  Cooper  Union, 
a  badge  of  union  with  the  entire  fraternity  of  educational  insti- 
tutions, together  with  a  duly  distinctive  nomenclature,  is  found 
in  the  retention  of  the  universally  employed  word  "  class  " — its 


28 

classes,  above  mentioned,  being  Class  E  (the  lowest),  etc. ;  a 
very  good  system,  we  think,  and  worthy  of  general  adoption 
by  Technical  Schools. 

II.  SPIRIT. — Passing  to  the  Spirit  of  Polytechnic  Schools,  it 
should,  in  common  with  that  of  other  professional  schools, 
above  all  things,  not  be  in  any  degree  a  weight  upon  the  neck 
of  the  local  civilization  where  it  exists,  but  itself  a  centre  of 
refinement,  no  less  in  its  grounds  and  other  material  appoint- 
ments, than  in  the  life  of  all  its  members,  and  in  that  of  its 
officers.  The  fundamental  social,  and  moral,  qualification  —  no 
less  important  than  scholastic  ones — for  membership  in  a  pro- 
fessional school,  as  such,  is,  possession  of  both  ability  and  dispo- 
sition, to  act  steadfastly  in  the  spirit  of  a  man  —  of  a  young  man, 
by  all  means,  but  still  of  a  man  —  ready  to  be  governed  by  the 
laws  of  the  land,  and  by  the  equally  inviolable,  though  unwrit- 
ten, laws  of  social  propriety,  and  of  honorable  professional  life. 

Again,  in  colleges,  the  unwilling  attendance,  perhaps,  of 
some,  and  the  absence  of  any  definite  high  aims  on  the  part  of 
others,  and  the  varied  ultimate  aims  of  most,  tend  to  disunite 
their  members,  and  the  existence  of  secret  societies  tends,  one 
would  suppose,  still  further  to  narrow  and  hedge  in  a  spirit  of 
broad  fraternity.  But  in  a  professional  school,  the  unity  of  aim 
of  all  its  members,  at  least  of  all  who  contemplate  taking  the 
same  degree,  is  a  natural  basis  for  that  comprehensive  unity  of 
feeling,  and  sentiment  of  substantial  equality,  which  would 
render  all  class  jealousies  and  disaffections  impossible,  which 
would  make  each  member  regard  each,  us,  primarily,  a  member 
of  the  institution  as  a  whole,  —  secondarily,  as  a  member  of  a 
particular  "school,"  or  class,  in  it. 

Last,  but  by  no  means  least,  every  member  of  every  poly- 
technic, or  other,  professional  school,  should  pursue  his  work 
with  free  ardor,  in  the  spirit  of  voluntary  and  interested  research  ; 
and  not  in  that  of  reluctant  fulfilment  of  unwelcome  prescribed 
tasks.  This  radical  element  of  the  professional  student's  spirit 
is  also  most  unequivocally  demanded  by  the  primary  facts  of  his 
position.  For  every  candidate  for  a  profession  is  supposed  to 
have  freely  and  devotedly  chosen  it ;  and  this  choice  involves 


29 

in  it  an  equally  hearty  choice  of  all  the  labors,  and  parts  of  the 
course  of  training,  necessary  for  honorable  and  promising 
entrance  upon  that  profession.  To  this  end,  effective  and  per- 
manently reliable  command  of  professional  knowledge,  consid- 
ered as  indispensable  to  real  and  permanent  success  in  life,  will 
be  his  absorbing  aim.  He  wrill  therefore  never  be  satisfied  with 
such  merely  provisional  knowledge  as  will  serve  only  the 
shallow  and  aimless  purpose  of  a  mere  technical  "passing"  of 
an  examination  ;  while  he  can  but  despise  all  knavish  shifts, 
and  aids  to  the  mere  form  of  success,  without  the  reality,  as 
mean  in  themselves,  and  as  too  pitifully  short-sighted,  in  view 
of  the  exacting  demands  of  a  professional  career.  So  reasonable 
is  all  this,  that  it  would  seem,  and  is,  doubtless,  generally  true, 
that  nothing  more  than  an  occasional  suggestion  —  true,  earnest, 
and  friendly  —  could  be  necessary  to  hold  even  a  moderately 
right  thinking  and  well  meaning  young  man  steadfast  in 
obedience  to  it. 

III.  USAGES. — Out  of  the  proper  spirit  of  professional  schools, 
some  of  whose  elements  have  just  been  indicated,  there  will 
grow  a  spontaneous  rejection  of  certain  inferior  and  ignoble 
usages — native  in  lower  schools — and  of  the  sometimes  absurd 
tyranny  of  class  majorities,  whenever,  for  example,  it  acts,  as 
it  sometimes  seeks  to  in  lower  institutions,  to  interfere  with  the 
inalienable  right  of  each  individual  student  to  enjoy  and  im- 
prove every  privilege  and  opportunity  offered  by  the  institution 
which  he  attends — things  which  are  acknowledged  as  blem- 
ishes, if  not  as  serious  evils,  in  those  lower  institutions,  and  in 
the  earlier  stages  of  student  life.  And,  so  far  as  new  usages 
are  instituted,  they  will  be  made  to  harmonize  with  professional 
student  life,  as  the  highest  and  closing  stage  of  that  life. 

These  lower  usages,  and  customs,  will  be,  and  usually  are, 
exotics,  impossible  to  naturalize  in  the  soil  of  any  professional 
school,  which  is  true  to  itself;  and  even  the  best  designed 
secret  society  should  hardly  claim  recognition  as  an  active 
organization  in  such  schools,  in  competition  with  the  other 
broader,  higher,  and  worthier  grounds  of  fraternity,  which  have 
been  shown  to  be  afforded  by  professional  student  life.  Indeed 


30 

we  believe  it  to  be  true  that  secret  societies  rarely,  or  never, 
maintain  an  active  organization  in  professional  schools,  subse- 
quent to  college  courses. 

In  this  connection,  however,  a  much  more  interesting  and 
important  question  arises.  The  legitimate  objects  and  doings 
of  voluntary  associations  for  mutual  improvement,  if  indeed  any 
such  should  exist  in  professional  schools,  presents  itself  as  a 
subject  not  without  difficulty.  As  every  one  knows,  nearly,  or 
quite  every  college  possesses  one  or  more  large  and  flourishing 
literary  societies.  Their  existence  is  readily  justified  by  the 
facts  that  the  characteristic  office  of  the  college  is  to  develope 
the  mental  faculties,  and  that  these  faculties  are  rapidly  devel- 
oped by  voluntary  painstaking  exercise,  in  view  of  criticism  by 
quick  and  watchful  competitors. 

But  the  office  of  the  professional  school  is  quite  different.  It 
presupposes  faculties  already  fairly  developed,  and  although  it 
does,  incidentally,  expand,  strengthen,  and  polish  them  still 
further,  yet  this  is  not  its  primary  aim.  For  its  aim,  as  before 
shown,  is,  to  store  the  capable  mind  with  fruitful  truths,  that 
is,  with  principles,  and  to  initiate  the  eye  and  hand  in  the  ele- 
ments of  material  professional  practice,  all  with  a  view  to  a 
productive  application  of  these  principles  and  scientific  physical 
accomplishments,  in  subsequent  professional  life. 

Now  the  determining  question  is  this :  Can  a  professional 
student  secure  accurate  scientific  information — which,  by  its 
nature,  must  be  exact,  or  worthless —  and  practical  scientific 
skill,  more  rapidly  and  effectually  than  by  devoting  all  his 
energies  to  the  most  faultless  possible  preparation  of  all  his  lessons, 
and  execution  of  his  practical  exercises,  under  thorough  professorial 
direction  and  supervision  ?  The  usual  practice  of  professional 
schools,  so  far  as  we  are  informed,  replies  in  the  negative.  We 
are  not  aware  of  voluntary  associations  in  professional  schools, 
supplementary  to  the  declared  objects  of  those  schools,  that  is» 
analogous  to  college  literary  societies.  Besides,  as  above 
shown,  the  entire  course,  itself,  of  a  professional  school,  is 
supposed,  by  the  very  position  and  proper  motives  of  its  mem- 
bers, to  be  entered  upon  and  pursued,  in  the  free  spirit  of 
voluntary  and  interested  research. 


31 

Still,  in  the  polytechnic  division  of  professional  schools,  we 
think  there  is  a  legitimate,  though  duly  limited,  field  for  the 
occupancy  of  voluntary  scientific  student  associations. 

First. — They  may  be  made  the  occasion  for  the  interchange 
of  valuable  results  of  study  and  investigation,  provided  that 
every  member  of  them  is  qualified  to  contribute  something,  and 
pledged  to  do  it,  so  that  all  may  share  the  discoveries  of  each, 
and  thus  add  to  that  permanent  fund  of  information  which  it  is 
a  primary  object  to  acquire.  The  results  alluded  to  may  be 
elegant  mathematical  reductions;  lucid  supplementary  notes  to 
obscure  passages  in  text  books  ;  original  solutions  of  problems, 
and  discussions  of  their  special  cases;  contributions  of  industrial 
drawings — so  much  more  stimulative  to  student  ambition  than 
engravings,  or  copies  made  by  an  instructor — or  models  and 
cabinet  specimens,  such  as  can  be  made  or  collected  in  vacations, 
etc. 

Second. — A  second  general  object,  in  apparently  entire  har- 
mony with  the  main  objects  of  the  school,  would  be  the 
collection,  through  regular  correspondence  with  graduates,  and 
others  belonging  to  the  professions  taught  in  the  school,  of 
copies  of  professional  reports,  prepared  by  those  persons ;  also 
the  exchange  of  the  various  regular,  or  occasional,  official  issues 
of  similar  professional  schools,  and  the  collection  of  valuable 
pamphlets,  etc.,  bearing  on  professional  education. 

Such  a  society  would  not  exist  for  purposes  of  debate,  nor 
wrould  it  probably  be  well,  save  in  case  of  a  very  large  institu- 
tion, perhaps  embracing  a  resident  graduate  staff  of  high  talent, 
or  in  conjunction  with  several  other  like  institutions,  collect- 
ively sufficient  to  afford,  at  all  times,  an  undergraduate  staff  of 
high  merit,  to  maintain  a  periodical  publication,  inasmuch  as  a 
worthy  one  would  otherwise  be  apt  to  abstract  too  much  time 
from  devotion  to  the  student's  really  best  interests — already 
pointed  out — as  a  professional  student.  The  society  would  be 
whatever  its  name,  or  organization,  substantially  a  "  Society  of 
inquiry"  analogous,  in  the  scientific  field,  to  "  Societies  of 
inquiry,"  in  other  departments  of  research. 


32 

IV.  DISCIPLINE. — The  actual  Grade,  correspondent  Spirit,  and 
consequent  legitimate  Usages  of  polytechnic  and  other  profes- 
sional schools,  being  substantially  as  thus  far  described,  the 
question  of  discipline  in  them  is  narrowed  down  to  the  smallest 
limits,  barely  entitled  to  recognition  as  a  proper  question. 
Every  member  of  such  a  school,  having  made  free  choice  of  a 
high  profession,  cannot  but  be  imaged  in  thought  as  diligently 
devoted  to  the  means  of  fulfilling  his  choice,  under  the  kindly 
guidance  of  his  teachers,  whom  he  will  be  necessarily  incapable 
of  regarding  otherwise  than  as,  only  and  always,  co-operating 
with  him,  to  secure  most  fully  the  end  he  desires,  and,  thereby, 
incidentally,  to  promote  the  best  honor  and  welfare  of  the 
school,  with  which  both  parties  are  identified  inspirit.  Where, 
it  may  well  be  asked,  is  there  room  for  the  idea  of  discipline  in 
such  a  picture  ? 

But  let  us  proceed  to  search  into  the  elements  of  this  topic. 
For  though  it  may  cover  ground  very  familiar  to  many,  conver- 
sant with  classical  colleges,  and  the  variety  of  professional 
schools,  which  have  been  called  humanistic,  yet  to  the  newer 
community  of  scientific  general  intelligence,  and  eager  interest 
in  general  and  technical  scientific  education,  such  a  re-discussion 
may  not  be  untimely. 

The  administrative  affairs  of  the  higher  schools  of  learning 
resolve  themselves,  then,  into  two  main  divisions  :  their  external 
or  material  affairs,  and  their  internal  or  immediately  educational 
-ones. 

These  two  classes  of  interests,  being  quite  different,  though 
intimately  connected,  are,  in  common  practice,  as  by  natural 
propriety  they  should  be,  committed  to  two  distinct,  yet, 
though  in  separate  spheres,  really  co-operative  bodies,  viz. :  to 
a  Board  of  Eegents,  Overseers,  or  Trustees,  and  to  a  Faculty, 
embracing,  or  not,  the  entire  professorial  corps,  according  to  its 
numbers,  and  other  obvious  considerations. 

A  Trustee  is  one  to  whom  is  committed  the  execution  of  a 
trust ;  and,  in  case  of  permanent  institutions,  as  those  of 
learning,  this  execution  includes,  as  cardinal  elements,  the 
establishment,  maintenance,  and,  if  credit  is  to  be  given  to  the 


33 

founder,  as  a  growing,    progressive   man  —  provision   for   the 
growth  of  the  institution. 

But,  by  expanding  this  statement  somewhat,  we  have  the 
following  view  : 

I .   The  external  affairs,  embrace  these  principal  points: 

1.  The  holding  of  the  course  of  the  institution  true  to  the 
general  plan  designed  by  its  founders ;  so  that,  for  example,  no 
medical  school  could  be  transformed  by  its  faculty  into  a  theo- 
logical one  ;  or  a  classical  college,  into  an  academy  of  music. 

2.  The    construction    and    equipment    of   fit    and    necessary 
buildings,  located  on  suitable  and  sufficient  grounds  ;  the  build- 
ings to   be  designed,  as  far  as  desirable,  by   their  professorial 
occupants,  or  with  their  approval  and  supervision. 

3.  The  provision  of  adequate  compensation  for   professorial 
work  demanded,  according  to  a  justly  recognized  value  of  the 
same. 

4.  The   appointment   of    officers   of  instruction,    which,    to 
best  promote   desired   success,  should  be  in   accordance   with 
nomination,  recommendation,  or  known  approval  of  other  such 
officers,  if  already  existing  in  the  institution. 

5.  The  holding  of  an  existing  faculty  responsible,  in  behalf 
of  material  interests,  for  the  successful  working  of  the  institu- 
tion, unavoidable    external    hindrances  excepted,  under  a  sys- 
tem of  instruction  and  government  to  be  devised  and  adminis- 
tered by  the  faculty  ;  and  expecting  them  singly,  or  severally, 
to  give  place  to  more  competent  successors,  if  their  department, 
or  general  systems  and  administrations,  respectively,  manifestly 
fail  of  success,  owing  to  inherent  imperfections. 

6.  The  establishment  of  appropriate  regulations  for  preserv- 
ing the  buildings  and  other  property  of  the  institution,  and  for 
the  management  of  its  funds ;  also  in  some  cases  a  certain  ex- 
tent of  active  participation  in  forming  outlines  of  a  system  of 
rules  of  internal  government ;  especially  for  academies,  and  for 
institutions  of  the  collegiate  type,  particularly  for  State  Univer- 
sities, like  that  of  Michigan,  for  example,  which,  being  creations, 
of  the  people,  may  reasonably  be  regulated,  in  a  general  way» 


34 

by  agents  chosen  by  the  people ;  as  is  done  in  the  case  referred 
to,  but  with  an  important  qualification,  soon  to  be  noted. 

These  high  and  honorable  functions  are  committed,  as  before 
stated,  to  a  Board  of  officers,  chosen,  in  part,  for  their  posses- 
sion of  such  liberal  culture,  and  enlarged  views,  as  would 
make  them  readily  sympathetic  and  co-operative  with  an  ear- 
nest Faculty,  in  appreciating,  and  laboring  to  meet,  the  claims 
and  wants  of  an  institution ;  and  in  part  for  their  possession  of 
business  capacity  and  energy  to  secure,  in  conjunction  with 
Faculty  efforts,  due  pecuniary  response  from  wealthy  liberality, 
to  these  claims  and  wants. 

£.  The  internal  affairs  of  superior  institutions,  are  ranged 
under  these  two  principal  heads  : 

1.  Instruction. 

2.  Government. 

The  department  of  instruction,  in  a  general  sense,  includes 
the  designing  of  a  comprehensive  and  symmetrical  curriculum, 
in  harmony  with  the  declared  objects  of  the  institution,  and  of 
a  practicable  daily  working  programme,  as  a  means  of  realizing 
the  proposed  curriculum,  as  well  as  the  actual  work  of  class 
instruction. 

The  department  of  government,  embraces  the  equitable  and 
charitable,  while  efficient,  enforcement  of  such  written  rules  as 
are  found  expedient,  for  those  institutions  which  are  fit  subjects 
,for  government  under  the  system  of  written  rules,  viz  :  acade- 
mies, and,  in  part,  colleges.  It  also  embraces  the  strict  hold- 
ing of  professional  students  responsible  for  violations  of  the 
obvious  proprieties  of  their  position,  without  rules  of  general 
moral  or  social  conduct,  either  to  instruct  or  to  constrain;  these 
being  the  legitimate  functions  of  rules.  For  the  whole  theory 
of  a  professional  school  supposes  that  eveiy  member  of  it  is,  as 
before  stated,  both  able  and  willing,  by  virtue  of  the  very 
nature  of  his  position,  to  do  his  duty  as  a  student,  man  and  gen- 
tleman. If  he  is  not  thus  able,  owing  to  social  or  moral  back- 
wardness, nor  willing,  owing  to  obliquities  of  moral  purpose, 
he  is  simply  out  of  his  proper  position.  Accordingly,  with  the 


35 

clearly  pronounced  moral  character,  properly  correspondent 
with  the  general  maturity  of  mind  and  character  naturally 
belonging  to  membership  in  any  professional  school,  every 
member  either  is,  or  is  not,  entitled  to  his  position.  If  he  is 
fully,  or  nearly,  so  entitled,  or  is  readily  accessible  to  influences 
tending  to  make  him  perfectly  so,  he  should  be  retained.  If 
he  is  not,  he  should  be  promptly  exscinded,  we  would  say,  not 
"  expelled,"  as  appended  to,  but  in  no  true  sense  of,  the  proper 
membership  of  the  institution.  The  professional  school  is  no 
field,  we  think,  for  the  exercise  of  that  tentative,  or  expectant, 
method  of  discipline,  wrhich  consists  in  a  long  drawn  gradation 
of  penalties,  embracing  college  rustications,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 
Indeed,  it  is  not  such  a  field,  in  prevalent  practice.  But  of  this 
somewhat  further,  in  the  next  section,  as  it  cannot  be  discussed 
just  here,  without  too  much  complication  of  the  topic  imme- 
diately in  hand. 

Now  to  whom  are  these  internal  affairs  legitimately  commit- 
ted ?  To  the  faculty,  as  supreme,  acting  under  the  abundant 
regulative  agency  of  a  general,  bufc  high,  responsibility,  already 
explained,  for  the  success  of  its  administration.  This  position 
is  no  less  supported  by  sound  reason  than  by  prevalent  usage. 

First,  in  reference  to  instruction.  A  curriculum  must  be 
made,  first,  to  accord  with  the  declared  objects  of  the  institu- 
tion adopting  it.  Then,  as  the  time  demanded  for  completing 
the  course  of  study  required  by  it,  also  material  alterations  in 
the  length  of  the  course,  may  decidedly  affect  the  financial 
prosperity  of  an  institution,  through  effects  upon  the  attend- 
ance which  it  can  command,  these  points  are  matters  for  mutual 
conference  and  agreement  between  the  officers  of  external  and 
internal  government.  But  beyond  these  general  preliminaries, 
the  control  of  the  officers  of  instruction,  over  the  arrangement 
of  studies,  and  methods  of  teaching,  is  probably  nowhere  ques- 
tioned. 

Second,  in  reference  to  government,  several  rational  grounds 
for  supreme  faculty  control  present  themselves. 

1.  If  at  all  competent  to  their  other  duties,  as  teachers  in  a 
professional  school,  would  not  men  intellectually  capable  of 


36 

giving  the  elevated  instruction  expected  of  them,  also  know 
what  and  how  much  of  student  propriety  to  ask,  and  how  to 
secure  it? 

2.  Principals  of  academies,  may,  in  many  cases,  regard  their 
positions  as  provisional,  while  seeking  some  other,  as  a  perma- 
nent one ;  but  professors  in  superior  institutions,  usually  con- 
template their  positions  as  permanent,  unless  called  to  better 
ones,  and  enter  into  their  duties  as  more  or  less  a  labor  of  love. 
They  identify  their  own  reputations  with  that  of  their  chosen 
institution,  and  thus  having  every  motive  to  study  and  promote 
its  welfare,  and  no  motive  to  defeat  that  welfare,  they  are  under 
no  dangerous  temptation  to  do  deliberate  injustice  to  any  one 
under  their  care.     Besides, 

3.  Which  is  worthy  of  separate  mention,  they  act,  according 
to   their   legitimate   form    of  responsibility    above   mentioned, 
knowing  that  they  justly  forfeit  their  places,  if  a  system  of 
their  own  free  devising,  and  externally  unhindered  administra- 
tion, manifestly  fails  of  success. 

4.  And  not  least,  how  could  those  who,  week  after  week,  and 
month  after  month,  come  in  daily  intimate  contact  with  the 
members  of  an  institution,   but  be  infinitely  better  qualified  to 
deal  justly  with  offences,  than  those  who  rarely,  or  never,  meet 
with  those  members? 

Testimony  also  is  clear  in  support  of  our  position.  Two 
representative  specimens  will  here  be  introduced,  since  some 
are  so  constituted  as  to  be  better  satisfied  with  the  argument 
from  experience  and  testimony,  than  with  a  purely  rational  one. 

1.  From  the  "Seventy-sixth  annual  Report  of  Regents  of  the 
University  of  the  State  of  New  York,"  1863.  After  noticing  that 
some  academies  had  lapsed  into  partial  inefficiency,  and  attrib- 
uting it  immediately  to  want  of  the  exercise  of  trustee  super- 
visory care  over  their  internal  affairs,  needed,  perhaps,  for  the 
reason  just  now  explained,  they  proceed  thus;  "  The  faculties 
of  colleges  are  necessarily  intrusted  with  their  internal  administra- 
tion. (The  italics  are  ours.)  Composed  of  gentlemen,  of  expe- 
rience and  ability,  who,  in  most  instances,  have  chosen  their 
profession  as  the  employment  of  life,  their  character  being  that 


37 

the  institution  with  which  they  are  connected,  they  have  every 
motive  to  faithful  and  earnest  duty." 

And  it  only  needs  to  be  added  :  If  this  be  true  for  colleges, 
how  much  more  for  professional  schools,  of  every  kind,  as 
belonging  to  the  next  succeeding  educational  stage, 

2.  Extract  from  the  constitution  and  laws  of  one  of  our  larg- 
est and  most  successful  universities  : 

For  the  General  Department. — "  The  immediate  government 
of  the  department  shall  be  vested  in  the  faculty,  and  it  shall  be 
their  duty  to  (Jirect  and  instruct  the  students  in  the  several 
branches  of  learning  taught  in  the  department,  [to  encourage 
them  in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  and  the  practice  of  virtue, 
to  counsel  and  warn  the  offending,  and  faithfully  and  impartially 
to  administer  the  law  established  by  the  Regents,"]  the  last 
phrase  being  in  accordance  with  the  fact  that  the  institution  is 
a  creation  of  the  people  of  a  state,  and  therefore  under  a  general 
supervision,  by  agents  periodically  elected  by  the  people. 

The  whole  paragraph,  it  may  be  added,  is  happily  expressive 
of  what  every  worthy  professor  voluntarily  and  gladly  does. 

For  the  Professional  Department,  taking  the  medical  school  as 
an  example.  "  The  immediate  government  of  this  department 
shall  be  vested  in  the  faculty,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  instruct 
the  students  in  the  several  branches  of  learning,  taught  in  the 
department."  This  is  all,  and  in  addition  to  the  testimony  to 
the  lodgment  of  control  over  internal  affairs  solely  with  the 
Faculty,  how  significant  the  omissions,  how  strong  the  asser- 
tion, by  implication,  that  every  member  of  a,  professional  school 
is  responsible  for  being  a  self-governing  man,  in  spirit ;  to  stand 
in,  or  fall  from,  his  position,  according  to  his  conformity  to  that 
standard.  Indeed,  in  the  report  of  the  Regents,  just  before 
referred  to,  the  almost  stereotyped  phrase  in  the  separate 
reports  of  the  numerous  professional  schools,  is,  "No  rules  of 
discipline  have  been  adopted.  General  propriety  and  decorum 
are  required." 

Once  more,  an  instructive  citation,  from  the  same  source, 
merely  to  show  what,  and  how  much,  is  meant  by  the  vesting 
of  the  internal  government  of  all  departments  in  the  faculty 


38 

alone.  "  The  presenting  of  petitions,  or  other  papers,  to  the 
Board  of  Eegents,  in  regard  to  the  government  of  the  Univer- 
sity ;  etc. ;  etc.,  are  regarded  as  disorderly ;  and  any  student 
who  engages  in  such  practices  may  be  dismissed  from  the  Uni- 
versity ly  the  faculty  (italics  our  own)  of  the  department  to 
which  he  belongs." 

In  view  now  of  all  this  extended  re-discussion  of  ground, 
embracing  well  established  principles  and  usages,  familiar  to 
many  higher  educators,  no  anomaly  could  be  more  evidently 
unseemly  than  would  be  the  extension  of  the  college  system  of 
rules,  with  pains  and  penalties  annexed,  over  the  superior  do- 
main of  professional  student  life,  unless  it  should  be  such  an 
extreme  misapprehension  of  the  grade  of  the  polytechnic  class 
of  professional  schools  —  as  level  with  that  of  other  professional 
schools  —  as  would  lead  to  the  sinking  of  them  even  below 
colleges,  to  the  plane  of  such  academies  as  might  seem  to  be 
in  need  of  an  active  trustee  administration  of  their  internal 
affairs,  as  well  of  their  external  ones. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  add,  in  conclusion  of  the  remarks 
under  this  head,  first,  that  they  are  not  a  plea  for  what  is  not, 
but  ought  to  be,  but  are  the  result  of  inquiry  as  to  the  natural 
grounds  of  the  usages  already  generally  established,  by  com- 
mon consent,  as  right  and  proper  ;  and  second,  that  nothing 
now  said  militates  against  the  existence  of  rules  for  the  proper 
use  and  care  of  special  rooms,  and  conduct  of  special  exercises, 
as  Laboratories,  Observatories,  etc.,  Field  Exercises,  etc. 


IV. 

fcttuwn  tie  fitel  antl 
0»ii0Ji  of     djjiwfati:  &dunA$,  and 


There  is  no  motive  for  concealing  the  fact  that  the  preceding 
views  are,  in  part,  ideal,  because,  in  a  few  of  the  most  devel- 
oped cases,  the  actual  so  nearly  approaches  the  ideal  in  many 
substantial  particulars,  or  can  easily  be  made  to  do  so,  in  these, 
and  other,  cases. 

In  reference  to  instruction,  the  great  want  of  polytechnic 
professional  schools,  is  a  class  of  preceding  institutions,  bearing 
the  same  relation  to  them,  that  a  classical  college  does,  for 
example,  to  a  theological  school.  This  want  is,  however,  not 
totally  unsupplied.  For,  first,  Norwich  University,  Vt.,  Michi- 
gan University,  Union  College,  the  University  of  New  York, 
Brown  University,  and  some  other  institutions,  expressly  set 
forth  two  parallel  courses  of  general  training  and  liberal  cul- 
ture, the  one  classical,  the  other  substituting  the  French  and 
German  languages  of  living  and  fruitful  science,  physical  science 
itself,  and  modern  history,  for  ancient  history,  and  the  dead 
languages  of  still  more  dead  gods,  and  their  corrupt  intrigues. 
Other  colleges,  as  Harvard  and  Yale,  partly  accomplish  the 
same  thing  by  a  more  or  less  liberal  provision  of  elective  studies, 
embracing  mathematics,  physics,  natural  science,  modern  lan- 
guages, and  history. 

Every  distinguished  and  high-minded  professional  man  earn- 
estly desires,  by  his  love  for  his  profession,  that  every  one 


40 


entering  it  should  possess  a  previously  acquired  liberal  educa- 
tion ;  either  a  collegiate  one,  or  the  nearest  attainable  substan- 
tial equivalent  for  it  that  the  still  incompletely  organized  and 
classified  educational  instrumentalities  of  the  country  allow,  in 
preparation  for  that  profession.  But,  as  is  well  known,  there  is 
a  want  of  adaptation,  on  the  one  hand,  of  collegiate  culture  to 
the  wants  of  all  the  different  professional  schools,  and  a  readi- 
ness in  the  community,  on  the  other  —  happily  decreasing  it 
may  be  hoped — to  accept  boldly  self-asserting  superficiality. 
Wherefore,  it  comes  to  pass,  that,  in  looking  through  the  cata- 
logues of  professional  schools,  we  find  it  not  insisted  on,  as  a 
condition  for  admission,  that  their  members  shall  be  college 
graduates,  and  but  few  of  them  are.  A  few  scattering  statistics 
will  sufficiently  illustrate  this  point,  as  seen  in  the  following 

PAKTIAL   TABLE 

OF   MEMBERS    OF    PROFESSIONAL    SCHOOLS,    HAVING    COLLEGE    DEGREES-, 


LAW. 

MEDICAL. 

SCIENTIFIC 
(Technical.) 

Dartmouth,  1  864  

8  of   47 

0  of    37 

"            1865,  

0  of    48- 

University  of  Michigan,  1858,  

6  of  137 

7  of    36 

"                      *'           1805 

48  of  '">60 

25  of  414 

7  of   2£ 

Harvard  College,  1851-2,.. 

71  of  104 

34  of  116 

17  of    69 

"             •*        1861-2,  

53  of  103 

45  of  206 

13  of    57 

"              "        1863-4 

75  of  r>3 

50  of  167 

15  of    75 

Yale  College,  1863-4  

12  of    31 

10  of    45 

7  of    57 

Union  College,  18HO,  

2  of    46. 

44             **  186o,  

5  of    40 

Columbia  College,  1864-5,  

88  of  158 

3  of    43 

Philadelphia  Polytechnic  College,  1864,.  . 

2  of  136 

Reusselaer  Polytechnic  Institute,  I860,.  . 

3  of    75 

41                         "        1865,.. 

10  of  152 

The  above  results  show  that  all  professional  schools  stand  in 
an  attitude  of  compromise.  While  their  most  earnest  friends 
would  like  to  see  every  member  of  them  possessed  of  a  "  de- 
gree," representative  of  a  previous  "liberal"  or  general  train- 
ing, they  must  accept  the  nearest  attainable  equivalent  for  it. 
Considering,  now,  at  what  a  disadvantage  the  scientific  techni- 
cal schools  are  placed,  in  the  scarcity  of  collegiate  institutions 
giving  a  previous  general  culture,  suited  to  their  wants,  the  fair 


41 

proportion  of  collegiate  graduates  among  their  members  is  sur- 
prising, and  gratifying.  In  connection,  too,  with  the  undoubted 
fact  that  many  others  of  those  members  have,  by  diligence,  and 
pursuit  of  extra  studies  in  the  best  academies  and  high  schools, 
obtained  the  substantial  equivalent  of  a  college  education,  the 
above  proportion  of  graduates  is  a  new  vindication  of  the  claim 
of  these  technical  schools  to  full  recognition  as  professional 
schools. 

Definite  statistics,  in  respect  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the 
previous  studies  of  members  of  the  "Scientific  Schools,"  are,  of 
course,  not  very  readily  obtainable. 

The  following  view  exhibits  the  results  of  inquiries,  for  three 
times  of  admission  to  the  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute. 
Out  of  132  men,  of  whom  inquiry  was  made,  the  figures  below 
show  how  many  had  studied,  more  or  less,  the  subjects  against 
which  the  figures  stand  : 

Botany, 32  History, 75 

Chemistry, 73  Composition   and  Rhetoric, i)2 

Geology, 26  Mental  Philosophy, 24 

Physical    Geography,    48  Moral  Philosophy, 28 

Natural  Philosophy, 101  Greek, 25 

Physiology,    47  Latin, 65 

Astronomy  (Popular), 49  French, 65 

Music,  Vocal  or  Instrumental, 49  Other  Languages, »...'..   25 

Free  Drawing, 50 

This  result  gives  nearly  seven  subjects,  on  an  average,  to  each 
man,  besides  the  fundamental  subjects  for  admission,  viz : 
Arithmetic,  Elocution, 

Algebra,  Penmanship, 

Geometry,  General  Grammar, 

Geography,  Orthography, 

and  besides  something  done,  perhaps,  in 

Zoology,  etc.,  Geometrical  Drawing  ^ 

Logic,  Book  Keeping, 

Political  Economy,  Trigonometry, 

Surveying, 

subjects  not  embraced  in  the  inquiry,  though  they  very  perti- 
nently might  have  been. 
6 


42 

Much  might  be  gained  to  the  cause  of  sound  and  advanced 
scientific  professional  scholarship,  by  the  general  adoption  of 
the  Elements  of  Physics  (Natural  Philosophy),  of  Trigonometry, 
of  French,  and  of  Geometrical  Drawing,  as  requirements  for 
admission  to  Polytechnic  Schools,  in  addition  to  the  eight  sub- 
jects above  mentioned. 

A  second  method,  by  which  the  polytechnic  institutions  are 
supplied  with  due  preparatory  courses,  is  by  carrying  back- 
ward their  own  courses  of  study  behind  the  point  at  which  they 
are  wholly  or  strictly  professional.  As  may  be  seen  by  refer- 
ence to  numerous  catalogues,  two  years,  only,  occasionally 
three,  is  the  usual  length  of  Law  and  Medical  courses  of  in- 
struction, the  commonly  required  three  years'  residence  with  an 
approved  practitioner,  in  the  latter  case,  being  offset  by  the 
subordinate  positions  generally  occupied  by  young  engineers, 
etc.,  for  an  equal  time.  But,  by  reference  to  the  Table  in  Sec- 
tion I,  we  see  that  the  scientific  school  courses  are  frequently 
of  three,  and  sometimes  four,  years'  duration.  Now,  in  several 
of  these  institutions,  the  earlier  portions  of  these  extended 
courses,  embracing  as  they  mainly  do,  subjects  which  every 
one,  aiming  at  a  high  standard  of  " liberal"  scientific  culture, 
should  be  acquainted  with,  are  expressly  placed  within  the 
sphere  of  collegiate,  or  general,  disciplinary  culture.  Thus,  at  the 
Philadelphia  Polytechnic  College,  there  is  a  separately  entitled 
general  "scientific  course"  of  one  year,  disclaimed  as  profes- 
sional, surrounded  by  a  circle  of  six  professional  courses  of  two 
full  years  each.  In  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology, 
the  first  two  years  study,  while  evidently  designed  to  corres- 
pond to  a  very  elevated  standard  of  what  general  scientific 
training  should  be,  is  only  assigned  to  the  sphere  of  such  train- 
ing, while  the  several  parallel  courses  of  the  last  two  years  are 
designated  as  strictly  professional.  And  once  more,  in  the 
Eensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute,  whose  course  is  one  of  four 
years,  the  studies  are,  from  the  beginning  of  **  Division  D," 
narrowly,  but  increasingly,  and  at  last  almost  purely,  profes- 
sional ;  and,  correlatively,  at  first  widely,  but  decreasingly 
general ;  or  of  a  kind  necessary  to  be  understood  by  persons 
desiring  only  a  liberal  disciplinary  education. 


43 

From  the  results  thus  far  indicated  in  this  section,  two 
important  inferences,  and  a  concluding  reflection,  arise. 

First. — The  Officers,  Members,  Alumni  especially,  and  Friends 
generally,  of  technical  schools,  have  a  mission  to  perform,  in 
elevating  them  to  an  unobscured,  and  undisputed,  level  of  rank, 
with  the  universally  acknowledged  professional  schools  of  other 
kinds.  This  mission  embraces  such  particulars  as  the  follow- 
ing:  1.  As  college  graduates,  other  things  being  the  same, 
naturally  make  the  most  appreciative  and  well  qualified  mem- 
bers of  professional  schools,  every  effort  should  be  made  to 
increase  the  number  of  those  colleges  which  afford  scientific 
general  courses,  of  riot  less  than  three  years'  duration,  as  the 
legitimate  forerunners  of  scientific  technical  courses.  To  expedite 
this  desirable  movement,  academies  also — for  in  them  the  work 
must  begin  —  should  divide  their  upper  classes  into  sections,  the 
members  of  one  of  which  should  be  put  in  special  training  for  a 
scientific  college  course,  while  the  members  of  the  other  would  be 
preparing  for  the  parallel  classical  course.  2.  That  the  profes- 
sional rank  of  the  technical  schools  should  be  unobscured,  the 
more  fully  developed  among  them,  so  far  as  they  desire  to  do 
their  own  preparatory  training,  might  well  resolve  themselves 
into  a  distinctly  pronounced  two-fold  general  organisation,  the  first 
department  of  which  should  be  of  a  collegiate  character,  and 
adapted  to  the  earlier  wants  of  youth  seeking  a  finished  scien- 
tific education  ;  the  second  department  embracing  any  proposed 
number  of  strictly  professional  schools,  managed  exclusively  as 
such,  in  respect  to  matter  of  instruction,  and  tone  of  administra- 
tion. 3.  The  establishment  of  resident  graduate,  or  true  univer- 
sity, courses,  according  to  the  standard,  named  on  p.  23,  for  the 
benefit  of  those  who  have  means,  and  desire  to  pursue  particular 
subjects  to  an  unusual  extent;  also,  efforts  to  secure,  at  all 
times,  at  least  a  few  students  in  such  courses,  who  would  also 
peculiarly  benefit,  both  themselves,  and  the  institution,  by  be- 
coming assistant  instructors  in  it. 

4.  The  general  adoption,  in  full,  of  the  three  fundamental 
tests  of  student  proficiency,  viz  : 


44 

a. — The  daily  recitation,  or  interrogation,  upon  assigned  les- 
sons, or  performance  of  assigned  exercises,  and  solutions  of  new 
problems,  as  the  distinctive  test  of  regular  daily  fidelity  to  duty, 
and  growing  command  of  principles ;  first,  in  advance;  second, 
in  review. 

b. — The  oral  session  examination,  or  test  of  power  to  retain 
matter  once  learned. 

c. — The  written  examination  (upon  new  applications  of  gen- 
eral principles)  the  test  of  retained  available  command  over  one's 
knowledge,  for  purposes  of  varied  practical  application. 

The  examinations,  should,  moreover,  to  possess  the  greatest 
value,  cover  three  different  periods, — first,  each  term  as  a  whole, 
second  each  year  as  a  whole,  third  the  total  course,  as  a  whole, 
so  that  the  graduate  could,  most  truthfully,  as  by  the  law  of 
public  morality  bound,  be  represented  as  possessed,  at  gradua- 
tion, of  at  least  a  fair  available  knowledge  of  the  entire  course 
of  study  pursued  by  him. 

The  efficient  maintenance  of  these  three  tests,  and  legitimate 
external  stimulants,  on  the  one  hand,  and  natural  adaptation,  as 
the  natural  internal  stimulant,  on  the  other,  might  doubtless  be 
relied  on  to  secure  results,  permanent  and  solid,  if  not  brilliant, 
and  such  as  would  demonstrate  the  impertinence  of  every  arti- 
ficial stimulant,  such  as  prizes,  etc.,  etc. 

5.  With  the  adoption  of  such  essential  measures  as  the  above, 
the  merely  formal  representative,  but  very  desirable,  ones,  of 
increased  age,  and  scholastic  requirements  for  admission  to 
technical  schools  (see  p.  42),  would  fall  into  place  as  matters  of 
course.  They  are  worthy  of  separate  mention,  however,  since 
their  adoption  would  doubtless  react,  especially  in  conjunction 
with  the  fourth  particular  just  named,  to  secure  the  desired 
movement  in  respect  to  the  first  three  of  the  above  fundamental 
measures.  It  is  our  conviction  that  the  best  rule  for  settling 
the  somewhat  arbitrary  point  of  age  for  admission,  would  be,  to 
subtract  the  total  length  of  the  course  from  the  age  of  twenty- 
one  years,  as  the  minimum  for  professional  graduation. 

Second. — In  view  of  the  more  or  less  mixed  character  of  most 
existing  Technical  Schools,  as  now  explained,  the  grand  ques- 


45 

tion  arises,  shall  their  governmental  administration  accord  with 
the  provisional,  abnormal,  and  subordinate  general,  or  colle- 
giate, character  found  in  their  earlier  stages,  or  with  their  per- 
manent, normal,  and  more  and  more  prevailing  character,  as 
purely  professional  schools  ?  With  the  latter  character,  by  all 
means,  we  most  heartily  say,  after  much  experience,  with  many 
a  company  of  efficiently  self-governing  young  men.  If  a  single 
qualification  is  to  be  made,  as  a  provisional  concession  to  the 
mixed  character  of  our  Technical  Schools  as  at  present  found, 
it  would  be  in  favor  of  the  adoption  of  the  single  rule  requiring 
regularity  of  attendance,  and  responsibility  for  preparation, 
since,  when  these  points  are  secured,  nearly  everything  is  se- 
cured, so  true  is  it  that  idleness  is  the  open  door  to  every  vi- 
cious folly.  For  all  the  rest,  uniform  conformity,  without  rules, 
to  the  standard  implied  in  previous  statements,  is  to  be  tacitly 
demanded,  and  practically  enforced,  quietly,  and  as  matter  of 
course.  But  while  the  inviolable  honor  of  a  professional  school 
demands  this  plain  speaking,  it  should  be  regarded,  first,  as  no 
less  the  voice  of  all  its  members,  than  of  its  Faculty  ;  arid 
second,  as  in  no  way  inconsistent  with  that  sacred  regard  for 
human  nature  in  the  stage  of  young  manhood,  which  would,  by 
every  kindly  means,  forestall  all  need  of  discipline. 

Few  are  so  strongly  self-centred,  through  possession  of  that 
controlling  personality,  which  consists  of  a  vigorous  will,  guided 
by  enlightened  reason,  as  to  be  the  same,  in  character  and  con- 
duct, under  the  strain  of  greatly  varied  surroundings ;  as  to  be 
free  from  the  sway  of  the  principle  that  men  will  often  be  to  a 
great  extent  what  you,  by  your  manner  of  dealing  with  them, 
practically  declare  them  to  be.  Wherefore,  if  a  professional 
school  is  operated  on  college  or  academy  principles,  i.  e.,  under 
a  code  of  formal  rules  —  too  often  embracing  petty  provisions, 
or  commanding,  and  enforcing  by  an  espionage,  humiliating  to 
all  concerned,  those  higher  duties,  performance  of  which  must 
be  free,  or  worthless  —  the  characteristic  blemishes  found  in  the 
weaker  and  frivolous  elements  of  college  and  academy  life,  will 
find  their  familiar  "  habitat"  and  spring  up  with  the  certainty 
of  fate.  But,  conduct  the  almost  completely  professional  school 


46 

in  the  interest  of  its  own  best  aspirations  to  be  undisguisedly 
and  undisputedly  such,  and  there  is  abundant  and  bright  evi- 
dence to  show,  that,  even  with  its  youngest  members,  regard 
for  its  honor  and  dignity,  as  well  as  for  the  home  whose  wish  is 
law,  will  maintain  all  needful  supremacy  over  the  natural  im- 
pulses of  earlier  young  manhood.  Why  then  repress  this  rising, 
and  easily  cultivated,  spirit  of  healthy  manliness,  and  profes- 
sional honor ;  and,  for  no  equivalent  good  secured,  postpone  the 
full  attainment  of  the  acknowledged  rank  of  professional  school 
for,  and  of,  young  men? 

But  the  most  complete  and  decisive  justification  of  the  policy, 
here  advocated,  lies,  it  seems  to  us,  in  the  obvious  propriety,  if 
not  positive  obligation,  of  making  the  closing  stage  of  a  young 
man's  student  life  correspond,  in  its  prominent  features,  with 
the  closely  subsequent  practical  life,  in  which  he  must  stand,  or 
fall,  according  to  the  amount  of  his  own  knowledge,  and  power 
to  use  it,  and  according  to  his  self-governing  power.  Is  it  jus- 
tice, we  ask,  to  the  unalterable  constitution  of  human  nature, 
to  plunge  it  at  once  from  a  system  of  floats,  and  guide-ropes,  in 
a  shallow  tank,  into  deep  and  troubled  water,  where  the  powers 
of  a  practised  swimmer  are  required?  Are  not  educators  for 
professional  life  bound  to  afford,  by  a  system  o£  administration 
which  demands  substantially  self-governing  manliness,  a  little 
experimental,  and  last,  school  circle  of  practical  life,  prelimi- 
nary to  the  world's  great  circle  of  real  life  ?  Should  not  the 
discipline  of  the  professional  school,  as  the  closing  one,  be  stim- 
ulative of  interest  and  alacrity  in  the  good  work  of  self-disci- 
pline and  early  self-government,  instead  of  listless  or  murmuring 
obedience  to  ignoble  external  restraints  ?  Why  should  the 
character  of  the  final  system  of  control  over  student  life  be 
based  on  the  conduct  of  the  meanest  few,  who  have  no  claim 
to  their  position,  rather  than  on  that  of  the  honorable  and  self- 
regulating  many  ?  In  other  words,  why  should  it  be  based  on  a 
few  mean  facts,  rather  than  on  many  goodly  ones,  so  as  to  present 
to  all  right  endeavor  the  pledge  of  the  best  recognition,  viz., 
recognition  of  its  right  to  real  freedom.  And  here  we  add,  that 
every  member  of  every  kind  of  professional  school,  who  would 


47 

see,  and  be  animated  by,  what  is  practicable  in  self-government, 
under  rules,  courts,  and  procedures,  of  their  own  devising, 
among  such  students,  and  practicable  in  elevated  and  refined 
associate  life,  would  do  well  to  ponder  the  account  of  a  cele- 
brated Swiss  school,  described  in  the  article,  "  Student  life  at 
Hofwyl,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  May,  1865,  an  article 
which,  it  is  to  be  wished,  might  be  separately  printed  for  wide 
circulation  as  an  educational  tract. 

As  this  article  may  not  be  accessible  to  all,  we  cannot  exclude 
an  intimation  of  the  character  of  the  system  described  in  it. 
According  to  this  system,  the  primary  disciplinary  power  of  a 
superior  institution  should  be  its  students  themselves,  acting 
through  an  organized  and  dignified  tribunal  with  regular  rules 
of  procedure,  and  acting  in  behalf  of  a  high-toned  student  civili- 
zation. The  decisions  of  this  tribunal,  in  reference  to  offenders 
against  the  true  honor  of  the  institution,  were  to  be  subject  to 
revision,  or  absolute  veto,  by  the  Faculty.  The  practical  effect 
of  this  feature  was,  however,  to  stimulate  the  students,  strongly, 
to  weigh  and  consider  their  decisions  so  dispassionately  and 
carefully,  as,  if  possible,  never  to  have  them  vetoed  ;  and  even 
modified,  as  seldom  and  as  slightly  as  possible. 

Under  such  a  system,  the  well-being  of  school  buildings,  and 
the  absolute  immunity  of  its  furniture  from  all  needless  deface- 
ment, could  never  be  more  complete  than  when  committed  to 
the  voluntarily  responsible  charge  of  the  students  ;  while  nothing 
could  so  restrain  idleness,  drunkenness,  or  offences  against 
neighborhood  peace,  or  property,  or  disorderly  concomitants  of 
out  of  door  exercises,  or  excursions,  so  effectually  as  wholesome 
sense  of  strict  accountability  to  the  high-toned  collective  senti- 
timent  of  one's  peers,  enforced,  through  the  orderly  action  of  a 
tribunal  of  those  peers. 

It  is  also  but  justice  further  to  add,  in  finally  dismissing  this 
topic,  that  the  writer,  himself,  attended,  for  two  years,  a  private 
free  school*  of  high  order,  in  which  no  code,  if  it  existed, 
was  ever  posted  or  heard  of,  and  in  which  the  grounds  were 


In  Newburyport,  Mass. 


48 

laid  out,  and  well  kept,  by  the  pupils,  and  the  building  was 
treated  as  a  home  by  them,  and  all  the  relations  of  teachers 
and  pupils  were  those  of  a  polite  company,  bound  together, 
and  to  duty,  by  unwritten  laws  of  social  decorum  and  kindness. 
But  it  should  be  added,  in  partial  explanation  of  this  elevated 
character  of  student  life,  that  this  school  embraced  pupils  of 
both  sexes,  who  associated  freely,  under  the  fewest  guiding 
restraints,  not  only  in  daily  classes,  but  in  musical  and  horti- 
cultural associations,  and  in  editorial  and  anniversary  managing 
committees,  all  of  which  were  active  organizations.  Eational 
faith,  in  young  humanity  thus  put  on  a  fair  footing,  here  had 
its  perfect  reward,  in  the  absence,  nay  more,  the  practically 
impossible  occurrence  of  any  indecorum.  Does  not,  then,  the 
advancing  and  purified  civilization  of  the  day  demand  that 
colleges  should  prove  their  ability  to  rise  to  the  level  of 
deserved  emancipation  from  sumptuary  laws,  rather  than  that, 
by  a  retrograde  policy,  professional  schools  of  any  kind  should 
be  lowered  to  the  level  of  involuntary  subjection  to  such  laws? 

But  we  contemplated  a  closing  reflection  to  this  section,  as 
follows : 

It  may  be  questioned  whether,  with  our  familiarity  with  the 
advantages  of  the  present,  and  our  comparative  incapacity  to 
realize,  as  by  experience,  the  disadvantages  of  the  past,  we  duly 
appreciate  the  bearings  of  the  great  contrast  between  them. 
Consider,  then,  that  classical  instruction,  not  essentially  differ- 
ent from  the  present,  dates  back  to  days  when  those  mighty 
agencies  of  popular  enlightenment  and  kindly  civilization — the 
public  school ;  the  popular  lecture ;  the  cheap,  ever  present, 
and  well-filled,  periodical ;  the  free  library ;  the  wide  extended 
and  diffused  facilities  for  cheap  and  rapid  travelling,  so  influen- 
tial in  opening  and  liberalizing  the  mind;  the  Sunday  school, 
too,  and  generally  accessible  kindly  and  helpful  pulpit  minis- 
trations, sources  of  intelligence  as  well  as  of  moral  and  religious 
soundness — when  all  these,  were  nearly  or  quite  unknown. 
In  a  word,  the  truly  educating  agencies  of  civilized  practical 
life,  were  far  more  meagre  in  earlier  days  than  now.  Hence 
many  a  bright  and  steady  lad,  of  twelve  to  fourteen  years,  now, 


49 

could  far  exceed  in  mental  development,  and  general  ability  to 
act  in  current  life,  many  a  rude  bumpkin  of  former  days. 
Hence  also  —  and  this  is  a  point  not  often  considered,  as  would 
appear  —  so  large  a  proportion  of  one's  total  education  being 
accomplished  by  the  common  and  constant  agencies  of  ripening 
civilized  society,  a  less  proportion  is  left  to  be  still  committed 
to  special  organizations  expressly  designed  to  impart  instruc- 
tion. Therefore,  there  seems  to  be  no  need  for  the  general  or 
technical  scientific  school  to  be  sensitive  about  adopting  as  the 
total  time  appropriated  by  them,  the  stereotyped  allowance  of 
six  or  seven  years,  as  in  the  usual  classical  course  of  four  years, 
followed  by  a  professional  course  of  two  or  three  years.  Indeed 
a  general  and  technical  course,  united,  of  from  four  to  six  years, 
added  to  what  the  best  public  schools  and  academies  can  now 
do  for  diligent  members  of  them,  would  doubtless  place  their 
recipients  more  than  on  a  par  in  general  culture  and  available 
power,  with  the  graduate,  in  generations  gone  by,  of  such  a 
seven  years'  course  as  could  then  have  been  had.  If,  then,  a 
seven  years'  course  be  still  retained,  as  the  ideal  of  a  full  extent 
of  general  and  professional  school  training,  it  would  be  with  a 
view  to  greatly  raising  the  standard  of  both  general  and  profes- 
sional scholarship,  over  that  of  times  when  the  school  was  far 
less  richly  supplemented  by  the  educating  agencies  of  common 
life  than  now.  Such  a  result  is  most  desirable,  in  behalf  of  still 
continued  human  progress,  while  the  enlarged  area  of  know- 
ledge offers  ample  resources  for  filling  seven  years  of  time  with 
elevated,  delightful,  and  fruitful  study.  Meantime,  we  see  in 
these  efficiently  educating  instrumentalities  of  our  enriched 
modern  life,  so  many  of  which  are  especially  consonant  with 
scientific  study,  a  source  of  that  substantial  equivalent  for  the 
old  collegiate  disciplinary  preparation  for  professional  study,  which 
the  technical  schools  have,  at  present,  partly  to  rely  upon. 
7 


V. 


Sources  of  information  concerning  polytechnic  instruction  in 
Europe  are  remarkably,  and  unfortunately,  scarce  and  inacces- 
sible. Long  extended  encyclopedia  articles  on  education,  supe- 
rior institutions  of  learning,  and  nations,  in  Europe,  pass  over 
the  polytechnic  institutions,  which  there  justly  claim  equality 
of  rank  with  the  highest,  with  bare  allusions,  or  partial  enumer- 
ation ;  quite  barren  of  all  definite  information.  This  may  arise 
from  the  comparatively  recent  origin  of  these  schools,  whereby 
they  have  not  yet  fallen  into  a  recognized  place  in  national 
systems  of  education.  In  view  of  the  probable  lack  of  informa- 
tion still  remaining  in  various  quarters,  concerning  the  number 
and  character  of  European  polytechnic  schools,  we  have  thought 
that  the  best  concluding  section  of  these  notes  would  be  a  brief 
account  of  some  of  them,  and  notes  of  matters  suggested  by  a 
view  of  them,  as  follows  : 

IN  FRANCE.  The  Imperial  Polytechnic  School.  This  cele- 
brated institution  was  founded  in  1794.  Its  course  of  study 
occupies  but  two  years,  but  this  is  only  because  its  require- 
ments for  admission,  especially  in  mathematics,  would  be  a  fail- 
qualification  for  a  professorship  in  many  institutions,  while  its 
own  professors  have  often  been  the  generally  acknowledged 
leaders  in  their  respective  branches.  This  school  being,  more- 
over, mainly  one  of  general  science,  it  is  supplemented  for  pur- 
poses of  strictly  professional  and  technical  education,  by  various 
special  schools,  some  of  which  are  the  following  : 

The  School  of  Eoads  and  Bridges,  for  the  special  training  of 
civil  engineers.     Course  three  years. 


51 

The  National  School  of  Mines,  with  ample  illustrative  collec- 
tions, and  a  course  covering  three  years,  for  the  professional 
training  of  mining  engineers. 

Three  National  Schools  of  Arts  and  Trades,  in  conjunction 
with  the  splendidly  equipped  Conservatory  of  Arts  and  Trades 
at  Paris,  form  an  effective  instrument  for  educating  higher  arti- 
zaris. 

The  Imperial  School  of  Forestry. 

The  Imperial  School  of  Agriculture. 

All  these  high  and  useful  institutions,  and  others  like  them, 
are  as  yet,  being  of  so  recent  origin,  out  of  the  pale  of  the 
great  central  state  department  of  National  education,  known  as 
the  "  University  of  France,"  and  which  embraces  the  whole  old 
and  long  organized  graded  system  of  National  instruction,  from 
the  primary  schools  to  the  Academies,  so  called,  which  are 
under  the  charge  of  eminent  Faculties,  and  have  a  university 
character. 

The  above  institutions  are,  however,  national  ones,  but  there 
is  one,  the  Central  School  of  Arts  and  Manufactures,  which  is  a 
private  institution,  founded  in  1829,  of  too  high  grade  to  be 
overlooked.  Its  courses  occupy  three  years,  and  provide  for 
the  wants  of  Civil  Engineers,  Mining  Engineers,  Mechanical 
Engineers,  arid  Chemical  Technologists. 

IN  GERMANY.  Here,  as  might  be  supposed,  from  the  reflect- 
ive turn  of  the  German  mind,  national  education  is  more 
thoroughly  organized  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world,  and 
popular  education,  through  common  schools,  more  universal 
than  even  in  this  country,  except  perhaps  in  the  most  favored 
portions  of  New  England. 

The  comprehensive  organization  of  German  schools,  of  all 

grades,  is  as  follows  : 

Primary. 
All  the  Elementary  Schools. 

Secondary. 
Classical  Schools  ;  Real  Schools ;  Artizan  Schools. 

Superior. 
Universities ;  Polytechnic  Institutes. 


52 

The  Classical  schools,  called  gymnasia,  are  of  about  the  same 
grade  as  our  classical  colleges.  The  Real  schools  are  about 
equivalent  to  the  parallel  "scientific  courses"  advertised  in 
some  of  our  colleges,  where  physical  and  mathematical  studies, 
with  modern  languages,  largely  replace  attention  to  sundry 
frivolities  of  pagan  mythology.  The  Artizan  schools,  or  indus- 
trial colleges,  are  yet  more  decidedly  modern  and  practical,  and 
stand  in  a  relation  to  the  Polytechnic  Institutes,  or  Industrial 
Universities,"  similar  to  that  of  the  Classical  Schools  (colleges) 
to  the  old  Universities.  In  1852,  there  were  26  of  these  indus- 
trial colleges  in  Prussia,  and  their  substantial  equivalency  to 
the  classical  schools,  and  our  own  colleges,  is  seen  in  the  fact 
that  there,  as  here,  fourteen  years  is  the  minimum  age  for 
admission  to  them,  while  the  actual  age  on  entering  is  consid- 
erably higher. 

Coming  now  to  the  true  Polytechnic,  or  Professional  Insti- 
tutes, we  find,  among  others  : 

The  Royal  Trade  Institute  of  Berlin,  founded  in  1821,  with  a 
general  course  of  three  years,  followed  by  three  special  courses, 
for  civil  and  mechanical  engineers ;  for  professional  chemists  ; 
and  for  architects. 

The  Polytechnic  Institute  at  Vienna  was  founded  in  1815.  It 
includes  its  own  preparatory  (real  school)  course,  of  two  years, 
followed  by  a  technical  course  of  five  years,  also  a  commercial 
one,  and  commanding  a  total  attendance  upon  its  regular 
courses,  of  1637  students  in  1852. 

The  Bohemian  Nobles'1  Technical  Institute  at  Prague,  founded 
in  1806,  with  a  preparatory  course  of  two  years,  and  a  tech- 
nical course  of  three  years. 

In  Bavaria,  also,  there  are  twenty-six  of  the  artizan  or  trade 
schools  (industrial  colleges)  having  courses  of  three  years  each, 
preparatory  to  the  three  superior  polytechnic  schools,  the  oldest 
of  which  is  the  Polytechnic  School  at  Munich,  founded  in  1827. 
It  embraces  a  preparatory  course  of  three  years,  and  a  poly- 
technic coarse,  proper,  of  four  years. 


53 

The  technical  schools  of  Saxony  are  of  a  high  order,  embra- 
cing in  their  lower  grades,  the  Eoyal  Trade  and  Building  School 
at  Chemnitz,  with  courses  respectively  of  four,  and  two,  years. 

Above  these,  are  the  Eoyal  Polytechnic  School  at  Dresden, 
with  a  lower  and  upper  section,  embracing  courses  of  three, 
and  two  years,  respectively.  Also  the  celebrated  Mining 
Academy  at  Freiberg,  the  oldest  in  the  world  of  its  kind,  which 
was  founded  in  1765,  and  provides  a  four  years'  course  of  study. 

The  Polytechnic  School  at  Carlsruhe  in  Baden,  established  in 
1825,  is  remarkable  for  its  completeness  of  organization,  embra- 
cing a  foundation  course  of  three  years,  followed  by  numerous 
technical  courses,  viz. :  one  in  Engineering,  of  three  years  ;  in 
Architecture,  of  four  years  ;  in  Technical  Chemistry,  of  two- 
years;  in  Mechanism  and  Technology,  of  two  years  ;  in  Forestry, 
of  two  years  ;  in  Commercial  Science,  of  one  year  ;  and  in 
Postal  service,  of  two  years. 

GREAT  BRITAIN.  While  this  nation  was  fancying  itself  to  be 
secure  in  its  commercial  and  manufacturing  supremacy,  the 
London  Exhibition  of  1851,  roused  it  to  a  sense  of  the  danger 
of  its  falling  into  a  secondary  scientific  industrial  position, 
owing  to  its  comparative  neglect  of  Modern  Applied  Science 
in  its  higher  schools  of  learning.  Glasgow  University,  how- 
ever, in  1839,  Kings'  College,  London,  and  Queen's  College, 
Birmingham,  in  1851,  were  giving  formal  and  quite  elevated 
theoretical  and  practical  instruction  in  Applied  Science. 

King's  College  embraced  courses  of  three  years  in  civil  and 
mechanical  engineering,  and  in  general  and  technical  chemistry, 
requiring  sixteen  years  as  the  age  for  admission. 

Queen's  College  announced  courses  in  civil  engineering  and 
architecture  of  three  years  duration,  requiring  their  entering 
members  to  be  eighteen  years  of  age. 

There  are  also,  in  London,  we  think,  a  College  of  Civil  En- 
gineers, a  Government  School  of  Mines,  and  a  Department 
of  Science  and  Art  in  the  Institute  of  Civil  Engineers  ;; 
besides  numerous  Schools  of  Industrial  (ornamental)  Design 
throughout  the  United  Kingdom,  and  a  College  of  Civil  En- 
gineers for  the  Indian  department,  at  Madras,  India,  notices  of 
which  we  have  met  in  Madras  papers ;  and,  without  doubt,  means 


54 

must  exist — in  scientific  chairs  of  instruction  attached  here  and 
there,  to  the  other  colleges  and  universities,  and  supplemented, 
perhaps,  more  than  elsewhere,  by  private  study,  or  by  the 
adoption  of  continental  precedents  ready  furnished  to  hand,  or 
by  attendance  at  continental  schools — for  educating  the  accom- 
plished engineers,  to  whose  qualifications,  however  attained, 
British  engineering  works  testify.  We  therefore  close  this 
notice  of  foreign  polytechnic  institutions,  with  the  remark, 
that  the  one  at  Carlsruhe  is  the  most  nearly  typical  one,  from 
its  comprehensiveness  of  organization. 

The  preceding  statistics  may  be  presumed  to  be  interesting, 
if  only  as  showing  what  earnest  and  intelligent  fellow  laborers 
have  done  and  are  doing  elsewhere,  and  under  different  political 
systems  from  ours.  But  they  serve  a  higher  end.  They  de- 
monstrate the  existence  of  a  universal  demand,  in  all  civilized 
countries,  for  a  new  form  of  general  educational  culture,  and 
professional  training ;  not  to  supplant  the  old,  which  includes 
much  that  is  permanently  precious,  but  to  run  parallel  with  it, 
as  the  legitimate  outgrowth  of  modern  science  and  life,  and  as 
the  fountain  of  supply  for  the  new  order  of  intellectual  and 
industrial  wants. 

This  view  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  the  continental  appre- 
ciation of  polytechnic  instruction  is  such,  that  the  larger  and 
lesser  European  States  make  appropriations  for  its  support 
within  their  borders,  as  regular! 3^  as  our  American  States  do  for 
common  school  instruction. 

Some  may  have  a  conceit  that  the  man-developing  effect  of 
freedom  alone,  without  special  educating  organizations,  is  an 
equivalent  to  the  elaborate  systematic  instruction,  thought  of, 
perhaps,  as  only  necessary  to  counterbalance  the  repressing 
agencies  of  despotic  governments.  But  with  duly  admiring 
deference  to  Yankee  ability  to  fall  back  upon  native  resources 
in  many  an  emergency,  we  think  the  following  to  be,  rather, 
the  true  line  of  argument,  relative  to  this  point.  If  the 
numerous  and  crowded  polytechnic  schools  of  Europe  accom- 
plish so  much,  as  they  indisputably  do,  with  all  the  depressing 
hindrances  of  a  half-suffocated  civil  life  as  the  political  lot  of 


55 

their  graduates,  what  might  they  not  do,  if  every  graduate  was 
there,  as  in  this  country  every  person  is,  one  of  the  royal 
family  ?  In  other  words,  if  partly  untutored  American  freedom 
can  compete  with  the  world  besides,  in  many  of  the  truly  best 
contributions  to  World's  Exhibitions,  and  well-called  "Univer- 
sal Expositions,"  what  might  not  thoroughly  cultured  and 
trained  American  freedom  accomplish,  with  its  fire  and  elasti- 
city acting  through  finished  intellectual  machinery,  such  as 
thorough  scientific  and  polytechnic  education  may  produce  out 
of  the  material,  turned  out  in  an  only  partially  wrought  form 
by  the  common  school  from  the  native  ore  of  original  talent  ? 

Finally,  therefore,  it  is  to  be  most  earnestly  hoped  that  at 
least  among  the  institutions,  having  so  large  resources  as  those 
provided  for  by  the  National  land  grants  to  the  States  for 
endowing  Scientific  Institutions  in  each,  especially  if  also  other- 
wise liberally  endowed,  if  not  among  the  riper  Technical 
Schools  of  this  country,  some  one  will  ere  long  be  found,  to 
signalize  an  era  in  American  scientific  education,  and  confer  a 
new  and  peculiar  glory  on  the  fortunate  State  containing  it,  by 
constituting  itself  a  true  typical  Polytechnic  University,  charac- 
terized by  a  completely  comprehensive  unity  of  design,  and 
built  up,  if  gradually,  not  in  a  disjointed  manner,  but,  even  in 
the  planning  of  its  grounds  and  distribution  of  its  buildings,  as 
well  as  in  its  component  courses,  and  "  schools,"  in  accordance 
with  a  complete  original  plan. 

Such  a  "  University  "  should  be  distinguished — First:  by  a 
central  foundation,  or  general,  scientific  school,  of  high  charac- 
ter, with  a  course  of  liberal  training  in  general  disciplinary  and 
useful  knowledge,  embracing  such  a  proportion  of  elective 
studies  as  to  possess  due  flexibility  in  providing  for  the  wants 
of  those  who  should  be  contemplating  any  particular  subsequent 
technical  and  professional  course.  Second :  it  should  be  distin- 
guished by  possession  of  the  highest  ^true  university  attribute, 
of  making  express  provision  for  the  indefinitely  extended  pur- 
suit of  single  or  associated  subjects  of  general  science,  and  real 
learning.  Third  :  circling  as  it  were,  around  this  central  gen- 
eral school,  which  should  be  in  a  plain,  but  rich  and  massive 


o6 

structure,  there  should  be  a  collection  of  all  the  technical  pro- 
fessional schools,  congruous  with  the  distinctive  idea  of  a  Poly- 
technic, rather  than  a  Humanistic,  University,  viz :  one  of  Civil 
and  Topographical  Engineering  (sections  of  one  school) ;  one  of 
Mechanical  Engineering ;  one  of  Mining  and  Metallurgy;  one 
of  Civil  Architecture,  naval  included  ;  one  of  Technical  Chem- 
istry ;  one  of  Physical  Technology  and  Technical  Natural  History 
(sections  of  the  proper  school  of  "  arts  and  trades") ;  one  of 
Agriculture  and  Forestry ;  one  of  Industrial  Ornamental  Design 
(Schools  of  Purely  "Fine  Art"  should,  we  think,  collectively 
form  a  separate  " Art  University"  disconnected  from  the  dis- 
tinctively "Industrial"  or  Polytechnic  one) ;  a  Commercial  one 
of  high  order;  and  a  Technical  Normal  School,  for  the  train- 
ing of  professors  of  general  or  technical  science.  Fourth:  As 
a  collateral  group  of  buildings,  each  to  be  as  far  as  possible  an 
architectural  model,  there  should  be  the  General  Museum  and 
Assembly  Hall,  the  General  Library,  the  Chapel  and  Observa- 
tory. Fifth  :  The  plan  should  include  Professors'  residences  and 
Students'  homes,  the  latter  to  accommodate  six  to  twelve 
persons  each,  with  the  householder's  family;  a  gymnasium,  and 
the  requisite  lodges.  Also,  in  respect  to  grounds,  they  should 
be  ample  enough  to  embrace,  wood,  lawn,  ground  for  manly 
field  games ;  a  botannical  garden,  and  arboretum ;  and  a  park 
and  pond  for  animals. 

Lastly,  the  buildings  of  the  technical  schools,  should  include 
the  various  laboratories,  cabinets,  scientific  society  rooms,  appa- 
ratus and  work  rooms,  appropriate  to  their  uses. 

It  would  be  easy  to  add  the  outline  of  a  simple  plan  of  dis- 
tribution for  all  the  foregoing  structures,  by  which  the  essential 
unity  of  the  entire  establishment  should  be  elegantly,  as  well 
as  visibly,  expressed  in  the  very  arrangement  of  its  material 
components.  But  we  forbear,  and  pass  on  to  consider  briefly 
the  subject  of  the  Endowment  of  Polytechnic  Schools.  Col- 
leges are  quite  generally,  and  not  incorrectly,  regarded  as 
existing  for  the  general  intellectual,  and,  incidentally  at  least, 
for  the  moral  good  of  the  entire  country.  They  exist  for  this 
end  more  than  for  any  merely  private,  especially  any  pecuniary, 


57 

good  of  their  members.  Hence  they  are  treated  as  having  a 
recognized  claim  upon  the  wealthy  liberality  of  the  country, 
and  are  very  often  quite  largely  and  cheerfully  endowed,  as 
may  be  seen  by  the  frequent  large  donations  to  them,  reported 
in  the  newspapers  at  "  commencement "  times. 

Professional  Schools,  however,  especially  those  of  Law  and 
Medicine,  while  existing  in  a  very  high  sense  for  the  general 
good,  exist,  to  a  greater  comparative  extent  than  colleges,  for 
the  immediate  pecuniary  benefit  of  their  members.  They  are, 
therefore,  except  Theological  schools,  less  generally  and  liber- 
ally endowed,  and  more  supported  by  current  tuition  receipts. 
But  the  exception  shows  that  a  school  should  not  go  unendowed 
merely  because  a  professional  one.  Let  us,  then,  examine  the 
claims  of  Polytechnic  Schools  «in  reference  to  this  question  of 
endowment. 

We  should  confess  the  impropriety  of  publishing,  here,  defin- 
ite statistics  as  to  the  endowments  of  the  schools  given  in  the 
Table  in  Section  I,  but  it  may  be  said,  in  general  terms,  that 
they  vary,  from  sums  too  small  to  name,  up  to  $50,000, 
$100,000,  $250,000,  $750,000,  $1,000,000,  and  upwards.  And 
the  life  of  the  institutions,  thus  variously  conditioned,  may  be 
supposed  to  vary  correspondingly,  from  that  of  a  dry  and  wiry 
cedar  growing  in  a  cleft  of  a  rock,  drawing  support  from  every- 
where but  the  immediate  place  of  its  growth,  to  the  spreading 
luxuriance  of  willows  by  the  water  courses.  But,  seriously, 
the  Polytechnic  Schools  provide  a  ready  entrance  to  lucrative 
positions  for  their  graduates.  Still,  the  labors  of  those  gradu- 
ates tend  directly  and  powerfully  to  increase  the  wealth  of  the 
nation,  by  developing  its  mineral  resources;  by  opening  up 
avenues  of  inter-communication,  as  in  railroads,  canals,  and 
river  and  harbor  improvements  ;  by  adding  to  its  mechanical 
appliances ;  and  by  the  increased  production  of  articles  of  com- 
merce derived  by  application  of  Industrial  Physics,  Chemistry, 
and  Natural  History  to  many  'arts  and  trades.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  studies  of  Polytechnic  Schools,  being  largely  mate- 
rial, require  elaborate  material  appliances  for  their  most  successful 
prosecution;  Models,  Instruments,  Apparatus,  Cabinets,  Botani- 
8 


58 

cal  Gardens,  and  Scientific  Libraries,  with  numerous  Diagrams, 
Illustrative  Drawings,  and  Charts.  They  thus  have  a  two-fold 
claim  to  a  liberal  endowment,  at  least  with  funds  to  equip 
them  handsomely  with  these  necessary  material  appliances,  if 
not  with  endowed  professorial  chairs. 

But  there  is  another  fund  which  Polytechnic  Schools  especi- 
ally need,  viz:  a  publication  fund.  Being  partly,  at  least,  a 
unique  class  of  schools,  their  text-books  can  often  best  be  pre- 
pared by  their  own  professors.  The  cost  of  making  such  books 
is  necessarily  great,  and  their  sale  of  necessity  relatively  small. 
Hence,  as  it  is  by  no  means  an  unknown  custom,  such  works 
should  be  published,  in  part  certainly,  from  a  fund  for  the 
purpose. 

We  here,  though  rather  abruptly,  close,  considering  that,  if 
these  Notes  have  not  failed  of  their  immediate  object,  they  have 
justified  their  title  page,  in  that  they  have  shown  that  Poly- 
technic Schools  are,  in  their  nature,  truly  professional ;  that 
their  position  is,  provisionally,  and  in  part,  one  of  compromise 
with  their  ideal  condition  ;  that  their  aim  is,  to  attain  the 
everywhere  undisputed  rank  of  fully  professional  schools  ;  and 
that  their  wants  are,  adequate  preparatory  schools,  (colleges) 
which,  in  turn  should  have  previous  academy  training  courses 
of  general  science ;  and  material  detachment  from  collegiate 
and  professional  schools  of  the  humanistic  type — not,  of  courses 
in  any  narrow  exclusiveness  of  spirit,  but  as  a  matter  of  expe- 
diency. Our  work  thus  done,  we  only  add  a  word  of  ancient  tes- 
timony to  the  impossibility  of  knowing  the  whole  of  anything, 
much  less,  of  everything,  and  hence,  to  the  propriety  of  the 
recognized  double  line  of  learned  pursuit,  humanistic,  and 
polytechnic,  which  we  have  advocated.  In  this  testimony,  the 
great  regal  example  of  the  polytechnic  learning  and  practice 
of  old,  who  says,  "  I  gave  my  heart  to  search  out  by  wisdom 
concerning  all  things  that  are  done  under  heaven,"  and,  "  I 
made  me  great  works,"  declares : 

"  He  hath  made  everything  beautiful  in  his  time :  also  He  hath 
set  the  world  in  their  heart,  so  that  no  man  can  find  out  the  work 
that  God  maJcethfrom  the  beginning  to  the  end" 


OTHER 

BY  THE  SAMP:  AUTHOR,  ON 

Practical  and  Descriptive  Geometry  and  Geometrical 

Drawing. 

Published  by  JOHN  WILEY  &  M>\,  535  Broadway,  \.  Y. 


ELEMENTARY  COURSE. 


J|.  —  ELEMENTARY  PLANE  PROBLEMS.  (In  preparation.) 

<1.  —  DRAFTING  INSTRUMENTS  AND   OPERATIONS.     Div.    I.  —  Instruments 

and    Materials.     Div.   II.  —  Instrumental   Operations.    Div.    III.  — 

Constructions  in  two  dimensions.     Div.  IV.  —  Elementary  ^Esthetics 

f>f  Geometrical  Drawing.     Price  $1.25. 
•5.  —  MANUAL  OF   PROJECTIONS,   ETC.     Div.   I.  —  Elementary  Projections. 

Div.  II.  —  Details  in  Masonry,    Wood  and  Metal.     Div.  III.  —  Ele- 

mentary Shades  and   Shadows.     Div.   IV.  —  Isometrical  Drawing. 

Div.  V.  —  Simple  Structure  Drawing.     Price  $1.50. 
6.  —  ELEMENTARY   LINEAR  PERSPECTIVE.     Part  I.  —  Primitive  Methods. 

Part  II.—  Derivative  Methods.     Price  $1.00. 

HIGHER   COURSE. 

7.- 

8.  —  DESCRIPTIVE  GEOMETRY.      General  Problems.     Price  $3.50. 

9.— 

10.- 

The  above  published  works  are  all  fully  illustrated  with  cuts  and  plates. 
They  are  used  in  several  of  the  Scientific  or  Polytechnic  Schools  of  the 
Country  ;  and  have  received  warm  commendation  in  various  quarters. 
The  volumes  of  the  Elementary  Course,  are  especially  adapted  for  the 
upper  classes  in  High  Schools  and  Academies  ;  and  for  the  Scientific 
Undergraduate  Courses  in  Colleges,  as  well  as  for  the  lower  classes  in  the 
Polytechnic  Schools;  and  for  the  self-instruction  of  Artizans,  etc.  Vol.  6 
is  also  especially  adapted  for  Ladies'  Seminaries  and  Schools  of  Design,  in 
which  the  principles  of  perspective  are  taught. 


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